Journalist Who Voted In Ballon d'Or Doesn't Even Exist

It's emerged that someone listed as a journalist on the Ballon d'Or voting doesn't even exist.

The Ballon d'Or has been awarded by France Football magazine since 1956 and sees their editorial staff put together the initial 30-man shortlist.

For the next stage of the vote, leading journalists from all over the globe (one vote per nation) are afforded their say - with 176 votes being cast in total.

Image: PA

England's man, Henry Winter of The Times, went for winner Luka Modric, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Antoine Griezmann and Raphael Varane as his top five, but somehow, Abdou Boina from albaladcomores.com, the man who got Comores vote in proceedings, appears to be a myth.

According to the list, Boina, or whoever was imitating, picked Kylian Mbappe as his first choice, with Modric, Ronaldo, Hazard and Salah completely his top five.

But alwatwan.net are reporting that the aforementioned newspaper hasn't been active for six years and there was never anyone with that name working for them.

"I am surprised to see that the daily Albalad Comores exists. That I know and this is the reality: this newspaper is closed for almost six years. In this body, there has never been a reporter named 'Abdou Boina''," Toimimou Abdou, who used to work as a sports photographer for the paper when it was running, told alwatan.net.

"We had two sports reporters, in this case, Abdoul Youssouf for the French edition and Sharif Ousseine for the Arabic edition."

To make matters worse, France Football used a dated flag for Comores that has been obsolete for 17 years in the list. It's all a bit of a mess.

In other Ballon d'Or voting news, some of the folks from St Kitts, Central African Republic and Kyrgyzstan went very left-field with their choices.

Merv-Ann Thompson from St Kitts had a bizarre top five of Neymar, Sergio Ramos, Luis Suarez, Alisson and Sergio Aguero, Bishkek Taras Hlypenko of Kyrgyzstan voted for Thibaut Courtois as the winner and then Albert Stanislas Koumbobako from the Central African Republic opted for Karim Benzema.

Topics: Football News, Football, Ballon d'Or, Luka Modric

Josh Lawless

Josh is a sports journalist who specialises in football and wrestling. He has been published by Curzon Ashton FC, Late Tackle, Manchester City FC, The Mirror, Read Man City and Manchester Evening News. He provides coverage of professional wrestling and has interviewed some of the biggest names in the field - including the first UK interview with The Hardy Boyz after their return to WWE. He has never sported a pair of Lonsdale Slip-ons, contrary to reports.

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