Real Madrid's childish Ballon d'Or boycott only detracts from what Vinícius Junior has achieved

Football, as a rule, doesn’t need all that much help generating cheap controversy. The sport practically swims in the sordid these days. Now, thanks to Real Madrid’s extraordinary public strop, we can’t even come up for air during the Ballon d’Or ceremony.

Just a few hours before football’s most prestigious individual award was due to be handed out, it emerged that Real Madrid had decided to boycott the glitzy event in Paris en masse, having apparently discovered that Manchester City midfielder Rodri would be given the award over their own Vinícius Junior, who had been the favourite. As the typically tedious ceremony dragged on, the seats of their manager and players sat empty.

Increasingly bizarre claims have spewed out over social media. That a five-hour show on Real Madrid TV dedicated to the Ballon d’Or was canned at the last minute. That Vinícius himself had been at a party celebrating his own victory the night before when he discovered that he wouldn’t actually be the winner. Heaven knows how much of it is true, but that doesn’t really matter, because the narrative of Real Madrid as entitled and brattish has been set.

It is, for the most part, an entirely valid accusation. Their ‘boycott’ was the petty and classless move of a spoiled child taking his ball away when his team is losing in the schoolyard.

This is a club who told AFP that “it is clear that Ballon d'Or… does not respect Real Madrid. And Real Madrid does not go where it is not respected." That supposed disrespect included naming the Spanish side as the best team in the world while also voting its players as the second, third and fourth best in the men’s game.

That club president Florentino Pérez would throw his toys out of the pram with the least provocation is scarcely a surprise, but it’s still disappointing and saddening to see Carlo Ancelotti and his players following suit. Grace in defeat is already an increasingly rare commodity, and this tantrum has set a terrible example to their own younger and more impressionable fans as well as creating yet another excuse for abuse to be hurled about on social media. Among the people currently on the receiving end of such abuse is Atlético Madrid and Argentina midfielder Rodrigo de Paul, apparently because some fans weren’t clear about which Rodri they were meant to insult.

Another strand to the story has been that of other professional players weighing in themselves. Rafael Leão was furious. Wolverhampton Wanderers midfielder Mario Lemina expressed his ire with an Instagram post which ended “bye football”, which would certainly be a melodramatic way to retire from the game, although one assumes that he won’t follow through on that.

These posts, ranging from the supportive to the ballistic, have mostly been mocked mercilessly by those who don’t wear white at the weekends, but one part of the story which has mostly been overlooked in the immediate, baffled response to Real Madrid’s boycott is that a great many players around the world, not just those who share a dressing room with Vinícius, wanted him to win not solely because of his qualities as a player but because of the stand he has been forced to take over the past couple of years against a ceaseless and remorseless wave of racism from supporters around Spain.

Vinícius has become the face on the dart board for bigots across Iberia. He has been booed. Pilloried. There have been monkey chants and slurs. He has seen his effigy hanged from a bridge outside Madrid by Atlético supporters. He has not only had to endure a vitriolic campaign of abuse and degradation but has stood up to the oppressive racist bullying he faces with strength and dignity, and done so without missing a beat on the football pitch and without much support from Spanish football’s governing bodies.

For a lot of his fans and colleagues, his expected victory in the Ballon d’Or was not just a victory for him but also a victory over the hate groups who have targeted him. Not everyone who is sending aggressive messages to any footballer called Rodrigo that they can find is necessarily incensed for that reason but is an undercurrent to the backlash which has not been mentioned enough so far.

Which doesn’t mean that the reaction hasn’t been overblown. Because while Vinícius undeniably deserves plaudits and immense respect for both his skill and grace on the pitch and for the determination and resolve he has been forced to show off of it, the Ballon d’Or is nevertheless an award which is intended to be awarded strictly on playing merit. And while the Real Madrid forward would have been an entirely worthy winner, Rodri is also more than deserving of such an award.

The Spaniard may not have faced the same kind of adversity, but he has won the Premier League and European Championship and been demonstrably the best midfielder in the global game. Last season he chipped in with 22 goals and assists from a defensive midfielder role, all while proving himself to be one of the most accurate and incisive passers in the game and a quite superb defensive shield. He may be the best all-round midfielder in history.

So it’s a shame that the story isn’t about the excellence of Rodri and Vinícius, or about the unconscionable abuse that the latter has had to endure, it is about the childish response by a club who cannot stand the idea of losing anything.

It’s perfectly possible to build a winning culture without acting like twelve-year-olds, and in an era when online behaviour has regressed to neanderthal levels, it would have been nice to see some class in defeat, something seldom witnessed in this entitled era of the sport. As it was, Real Madrid refusing to sit there and accept less prestigious awards collectively was simply sad and another reminder of how far standards of behaviour have fallen.

But don’t forget that just as there is a very good reason that Rodri won, there is also a very good reason that so many people desperately wanted Vinícius to be handed the award. He is an inspiration for millions and deserves to be, as he will deserve the eventual Ballon d’Or that he will, on balance of probability, still win one day. It’s just a shame that not only has Real Madrid’s behaviour as a club cheapened that likely win already, but offered even more excuses up to his abusers. Then again, such vile people seldom need their flames fanned anyway.