‘France Football’ Editor-in-Chief admits delivering the 2020 Golden Ball to Lewandowski – International

A delivery of the 2021 Golden Ball to Leo Messi continues to be talked about. The Argentine overcame Robert Lewandowski by 33 points and this Wednesday the editor-in-chief of ‘France Football’ magazine, Pascal Ferré, who was target of harsh criticism by Cristiano Ronaldo, pronounced on the awarding of the prize. “The Golden Ball is based on a democratic system. We have a 170-member jury who decided to give it to Messi. I chose Lewandowski to win, but I accept that Messi also deserves the Golden Ball,” explained the journalist , in statements to the Swiss portal Watson. When he took the stage to receive the 7th Golden Ball of his career, Messi ‘asked’ Lewandowski to receive the 2020 Golden Ball, as last year the award was not awarded due to the pandemic. And Pascal Ferré does not rule out the possibility of handing the award to the Polish forward from Bayern Munich.

Messi’s words were pleasant and very intelligent. I don’t think we should rush into decisions, but we can and should think about giving the 2020 Golden Ball to Lewandowski. We cannot be sure whether Lewandowski would have won the Ballon d’Or last year as there was no vote. But to be honest, last year, Lewandowski would have a high chance of winning,” argued the France Football journalist.

Response to criticism by Paolo Rossi

France Football is being criticized in Italy for not having honored Paolo Rossi at the Ballon d’Or gala, as it did with Maradona and Gerd Müller. Pascal Ferré justified himself. “We don’t want to get into this kind of polemics, nor do we want to interpret everything related to the ceremony as polemic. Anything I say would be distorted. If necessary, I will speak directly to the family of Paolo Ross,” he explained to the ‘Gazzetta dello Sport’.