As had widely been expected, Karim Benzema is now a Ballon d’Or winner.
The Real Madrid striker, who led his team to La Liga and Champions League titles and scored a career-high 44 goals in 46 games across all competitions last season, was crowned by France Football on Monday, becoming the fifth Frenchman to win the award given to the world’s best player (Raymond Kopa, Michel Platini, Jean-Pierre Papin, Zinedine Zidane). On the women’s side, Barcelona’s Alexia Putellas became a back-to-back winner despite the club’s defeat at the hands of Lyon in the Women’s Champions League final. She scored 42 goals and added 22 assists in another dominant campaign before tearing her ACL on the eve of the Women’s European Championship this past summer.
Earlier this year, France Football announced major changes to the Ballon d’Or voting criteria. The magazine confirmed that voting would be based first on individual performance, followed by team performance and fair play, while a player’s reputation and performance from past years would not influence voting.
