All-time Ballon d'Or: Cristiano Ronaldo's 2008 season wins France Football's public vote

Many people are searching for the "all-time Ballon d'Or" today because the public vote has a result. Cristiano Ronaldo's 2008 season came first and beat Lionel Messi's 2012 season. [1] A Bola, the Portuguese newspaper, reported the result in a piece dated October 28. [1]

What happened in the vote

France Football opened a public vote to pick the best season in the award's history. [4] The vote is known as B.O.A.T. [1] Each vote cost one euro, and people could vote as many times as they liked, including for the same season. [2] [5] The vote closed on October 27 at 23:59 Paris time. [2] Eurosport says the voting ran through the ballondor.com website, and its report does not detail the rules. [6]

Eurosport reports the top three as Ronaldo's 2008 season, Messi's 2012 season and Ronaldo's 2017 season, and the list also included other legends of the game. [6]

Voters could only choose between seasons of players who had already won the Ballon d'Or at least twice. [1] A Bola says that 5,009 people voted more than once: 44 of them between 10 and 26 times, 300 between five and nine times, and 4,665 between two and four times. [1] The article does not give a total number of votes.

The first published figures showed Ronaldo's 2008 season with 75 percent of the votes and Messi's 2012 season with 9 percent. [4] [5] El Economista warned that those numbers were provisional. [2]

The debate over the format

The vote drew criticism from fans. Extra reported that some people questioned its validity and its link to the Super Ballon d'Or. [3] France Football replied that the B.O.A.T. "is not the Super Ballon d'Or", and presented it as a public vote to celebrate fan passion rather than an official trophy or award. [3]

WorldSoccerTalk criticised the design: each player's career is split into separate options, which hurts players who won more awards. [4] Sportsmole stressed that the result measures paid votes, not people, because there is no limit on how many times one person can vote. On that reading, the 75 percent reflects the share of votes cast and does not prove that three out of four fans consider Ronaldo the best player in history. [5]

Background: a 70th-anniversary idea

The vote marked the award's 70th anniversary and was presented as a special initiative, separate from the annual Ballon d'Or. [2] The organisers described it as a fan-driven celebration, not a new official trophy. [5]

That distinction matters when reading the news. A Bola also records France Football's clarification that the vote is not an official award and is not a "Super Bola de Ouro". [1]

What comes next

The vote has closed, and the final result was scheduled for October 28. [5] The percentages that circulated before the close were partial, so they should be read that way. [2]