Luca Modric, as expected wins the Golden Ball – Outrage as 1st-ever Women’s Ballon d’Or winner asked to twerk onstage by host (Updated)
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Croat Luca Modric as expected to won the Golden Ball. Although this wasn’t confirmed earlier in the evening an image of Tuesday’s edition of the newspaper France Football, was leaked online.
Modric came first with 753 points. Cristiano Ronaldo came second with 470 while Antoine Griezman came third with 414 points.
In September, Modric was handed the FIFA Men’s Best Player award from FIFA president Gianni Infantino and the former Spurs midfielder has completed a stellar year by adding the most prestigious individual prize in football to his collection at a ceremony in Paris.
Consistent as ever, he was integral to Real Madrid winning their third Champions League in a row under Zinedine Zidane.
He then followed that up by captaining Croatia to the World Cup final for the first time in their history – deservedly winning the Golden Ball for the tournament thanks to his incredible displays in the middle of the park.
Since 2008 Ronaldo and Messi took turns in taking the trophy home, but Modric, the overwhelming favourite for the award, has ended 10 years of them running riot – pipping the pair and the likes of Antoine Griezmann, Kylian Mbappe, Raphael Varane and Eden Hazard.
The Croatian’s win was overshadowed when the inaugural winner of the women’s award Ada Hegerberg was asked to perform a twerk live on stage by the host DJ Martin Solveig. Hegerberg, who scored in this year’s Champions League final and also helped Lyon win the French title, pipped Denmark’s striker Pernille Harder into second place but appeared embarrassed when asked by the main host David Ginola and French house DJ Solveig if she wanted to perform the sexually provocative dance in celebration. The 23-year-old said “no” and seemed to attempt to leave the stage before reluctantly agreeing to dance to another song with Ginola.
She later admitted she was extremely proud to be named the first female winner. “It’s incredible,” Hegerberg said. “This is a great motivation to continue working hard and we will continue to work together to win more titles. I wanted to end with some words for young girls around the world: believe in yourselves.”
