Raphinha makes honest Ballon d'Or admission after Cristiano Ronaldo comments on the award

Barcelona star Raphinha has made a shock admission about his Ballon d'Or chances after Cristiano Ronaldo gave his opinion on the 2025 award.

Following the end of the 2024/25 football season, many fans have already started to look ahead to the Ballon d'Or ceremony and debate who deserves to win this year's award.

The ceremony is set to take place on September 22 at the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris, with several of the biggest names in football in with a chance of winning.

One of these players, is Barcelona forward Raphinha, who has played a key role in the Spanish giants winning La Liga and reaching the Champions League semi-finals.

However, with the likes of Lamine Yamal, Ousmane Dembele and Mohamed Salah also in with a chance, Raphinha is facing tough competition, and it appears he isn't confident about his chances.

Raphinha is among the favourites to win the Ballon d'Or this year. (Image: Getty)

As discussions surrounding the 2025 Ballon d'Or begin to ramp up, it appears that Dembele and Yamal have emerged as the clear favourites to win the award in September.

This has led to some fans growing frustrated on social media, with one account posting a video with images of Vinicius Jr, Neymar and Raphinha regarding them winning the Ballon d’Or.

The caption of the video included in the post read: “I think history will repeat itself unfortunately.”

Of course, this caption is referencing the fact that both Vinicius and Neymar have famously missed out on winning the Ballon d'Or in years that they were favourites.

Neymar jr was beaten by teammate Lionel Messi during the 2016 awards, while Vinicius missed out to Manchester City's Rodri last year, and it appears this account believes the same will happen to their fellow Brazilian this year.

Although videos like this are fairly common, this one is particularly noteworthy as eagle-eyed fans noticed that Raphinha himself had liked the post, suggesting that he agrees that he deserves to win this year, but is likely to miss out.

Cristiano Ronaldo has called individual awards irrelevant, despite winning the Ballon d'Or five times. (Image: Getty)

The news comes shortly after Ronaldo hit out at the Ballon d'Or award, suggesting that the award has now lost some of its prestige and that individual awards are no longer

“The individual awards have lost some consensus; I can’t say anything about who should win," he admitted in a press conference ahead of the Nations League final.

"In my opinion, those who stand out and win the Champions League should win. But there is no consensus. I don’t believe much in individual awards because I know what goes on behind the scenes.

"Lamine could win, like Dembele or Vitinha, other emerging players, but individual awards are irrelevant.”