Vohra’s View: Dull Ballon d’Or’s dark cloud and MS Dhoni’s deity issues

Bikram Vohra 15:32 14/01/2016
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  • The good (l) and the bad of FIFA.

    Zurich, at the best of times, is a straitlaced, unexciting city. Ideal for bankers, sepulchral financial whispers and the muted echo of receding footsteps down long corridors that are home to solemn paintings and rich murals decorating their walls.

    It was a fitting place to hold the soporific 2015 Ballon d’Or awards, football’s glittering moment of the year when the best of the sport’s gladiators gather to crown their king and queen.

    This year all it needed was a coffin to complete the overall effect of a funeral. You almost expected a dirge to rise from the orchestral pit except there wasn’t any pit and everyone including the finalists walked up and down the stage interminably, often sans reason… almost like they were stuck in a revolving door.

    The Emcees, Irish actor James Nesbitt and British journalist Kate Abdo, did their best to ignite some excitement in an audience of over 1,000 solemn people but it was like lighting a wet matchstick in a wind.

    Short of a spasm of suspense when the award for the Player of the Year was announced with Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar as the finalists, the excitement rate meter flat-lined for nearly two

    hours.

    You got the feeling that everything was forced, even the players and guests had that grim “Princy’s Assembly, a public six of the best” expression on their faces. Clearly the dark clouds of the multiple investigations inside FIFA and without lay low and menacing over the organisers. But let’s not allow the dullness of the event or absence of well known officials like Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini to detract from the glory of the recognition.

    Not only did Messi pick up his fifth golden ball but surged Barcelona into top position with 11 such awards, three ahead of AC Milan, Juventus and Real Madrid.

    The Ballon d’Or is given to the man and woman who get the maximum votes from captains of FIFA’s national teams, their managers and a media member from each country.

    US midfielder Carli Lloyd also claimed her first-ever award in the women’s category and added a much welcomed sliver of scarlet colour to the cluster of penguins.

    Some interesting asides on the voting patterns have been released by FIFA after the curtain came down. Germany’s Bastian Schweinsteiger, Austria’s Christian Fuchs and Poland’s Robert Lewandowski all voted for Bayern goalkeeper Manuel Neuer first.

    Luis Suarez, notably left off the FIFPro World XI, was voted first by his Barcelona teammate Messi and his countryman Diego Godin.Wales captain Ashley Williams also voted for his countryman Gareth Bale.

    Cristiano Ronaldo whitewashed his ballot with Los Blancos teammates Karim Benzema, James Rodriguez and Bale.

    Maybe next year the function could inject a modicum of fun into the mix.

    Dhoni issued arrest warrant
    On another note, if you think Chris Gayle has problems ask Indian skipper M.S.Dhoni.

    He faces a non-bailable arrest warrant from a small town court in an Indian state for having allegedly injured the religious feelings of the majority population by posing as a Hindu deity.

    It gets better seeing as how the photograph that offends the petitioner, a social activist, was published in 2013 and was on the cover of a magazine. The judge has called it an advertisement for making money while displaying a profound lack of consideration for others. The point is it is not an ad and Dhoni never posed for it. It is a morphed picture from the design department of Business Today and totally an editorial exercise. In all
    likelihood he probably was not even asked.

    Times like this you begin to believe that the price of fame has a very heavy tax on it.

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