FRANCE | LEO MESSI
PSG investigated for trying to influence 2021 Ballon d’Or outcome in favour of Leo Messi
According to Le Monde and Mediapart, PSG allegedly pressured France Football for the Argentinian to win the Ballon d’Or in 2021.
The judicial investigations into PSG continue. After it was revealed that Gerald Darmanin, the current French interior minister, allegedly helped the Parisian club avoid paying taxes on Neymar’s transfer in 2017, Le Monde and Mediapart have reported that the club allegedly lobbied for Leo Messi to win the Ballon d’Or between 2020 and 2021.
In both years, Paris Saint-Germain strengthened its ties and relationship with Pascal Ferré, then president of France Football magazine, which presents the award. According to Le Monde, the Ballon d’Or organiser was ‘forced’ to delete a report from L’Équipe (a newspaper belonging to the Artemis group, which also includes France Football) that Nasser Al Khelaïfi had received kickbacks in 2011 for the signing of Javier Pastore.
In return, Ferré, who was appointed several months ago as PSG’s new communications officer, received tickets for the capital club’s matches, including a 2020 match against Borussia Dortmund behind closed doors, as well as a business class flight on Qatar Airways paid for by the Qatari government for an estimated €8,986 in March 2021.
These gifts from PSG allegedly helped the club lobby for Messi to win the Ballon d’Or once he signed for the French capital club. The police investigation, revealed by Le Monde and Mediapart, details messages from M.Ribes, former director of communications at the club, in which he notified Al Khelaïfi that “it was necessary to lobby” and that they would have lunch with Pascal Ferré.
Ferré denies the claims
After the information was brought to light, Ferré and his entourage deny having had any involvement in favoring Messi to win the 2021 Ballon d’Or. The former director of France Football magazine claims that the Argentine forward was not nominated for the award in 2022 and that in 2021, which is when he won the seventh award, Ferré voted Robert Lewandowski as the best player in the world.
PSG’s head of communications claims that his magazine, France Football, published an issue in 2010 entitled ‘Qatar Gate’ in which it reported on the ins and outs of fraudulently awarding the World Cup to the Middle Eastern country.