Rodri aims sly dig at Cristiano Ronaldo after 'unfair' Ballon d'Or snipe | OneFootball

Rodri has aimed a sly dig at Cristiano Ronaldo after the veteran superstar questioned the Manchester City midfielder winning the 2024 Ballon d'Or ahead of Vinicius Junior.

Vinicius was hot favourite to land the award off the back of a season in which he was pivotal in Real Madrid winning a rare La Liga and Champions League double. But it became apparent just a few hours before the ceremony that he would miss out and the Spanish giants boycotted the entire event over a perceived lack of respect -despite actually winning coaching and team prizes.

Rodri was a worthy winner, though, steering Manchester City to an unprecedented fourth consecutive English league title and winning Euro 2024 with Spain. His injury absence and City's struggles over the last couple of months have underlined just how important he was to Pep Guardiola's side.

Vini eventually landed The Best FIFA Men's Player title, but failing to win the Ballon d'Or, which is voted for by 100 journalists rather than FIFA's wider voting pool that includes players and coaches, still irks him and his supporters, Ronaldo among them.

Cristiano Ronaldo publicly questioned Rodri's Ballon d'Or triumph / Anadolu/GettyImages

Speaking recently at the 2024 edition of the Globe Soccer Awards, the 39-year-old labelled the Ballon d'Or result "unfair". He said: "Vinicius Junior should have won the Ballon d'Or, in my opinion it was clear. It was unfair. This is why I love Globe Soccer Awards, they are honest."

Rodri has now called out what he perceives as double standards from Ronaldo, who is himself a five-time Ballon d'Or winner. "It was a surprise, really, because he knows better than anyone how [the Ballon d’Or] works and, above all, how the winner is chosen," Rodri told AS.

"This year, the journalists who vote have decided that I should win it. Probably, these same journalists were the ones who at some point voted for him to win it, and I imagine that then he would have agreed."