Ballon d’Or scandal: Juvenal claims 2013 votes changed to Messi and Ronaldo

Juvenal Edjogo, former captain of the Equatorial Guinea national team, revealed a scandal - his Ballon d’Or votes were completely changed back in 2013.

Ex-captain of the Equatorial Guinea national team Juvenal Edjogo dropped a bomb when he was speaking with the Spanish sports network Gol Play. Talking about the Ballon d’Or awards, Juvenal said that back in 2013, he voted for Didier Drogba and Andrés Iniesta, but when the voting was made public, under his name were listed Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

“These awards have no value”

“What little I can say about this type of award is that in 2013, I voted for my three players for the Ballon d’Or, and I sent my votes, and in the end when it was made public, the list of who voted for who, my votes were different,” Juvenal told Gol Play.

“It said I voted for Messi, Cristiano, and I don’t know who else, but I didn’t vote for any of them. That’s why I say, I don’t believe in absolutely anything about those awards.”

Juvenal said he never told anyone about the mistake (or change?) because he didn’t care much. It only served to make him stop believing the the awards mean anything at all.

“Since then, I’ve thought these awards have no value.”

Previous reports claim voter fraud in 2013

At the time of the 2013 Ballon d’Or results, other reports, including from Spanish paper Mundo Deportivo, Danish publication BT and Norweigan publication Dagbladet detailed that several coaches claimed voter fraud, saying their votes had been changed as well.

Unfortunately, at the time of writing, the official FIFA webpage for how the voting went in 2013 was inaccessible.

We have reached out to FIFA for comment and are awaiting a response. Although France Football magazine has generally run these awards, world football’s governing body took control for a few years between 2010 and 2015, a period dominated by Messi and Ronaldo.