Scandal as fake journalist is allowed to vote for the Ballon d'Or | OneFootball

The Ballon d’Or has been rocked by the discovery that one of the journalists who voted for it doesn’t actually exist.

The award – which is organised by French outlet France Football and voted for by a select group of 176 journalists from around the world – was presented to Real Madrid and Croatia midfielder Luka Modrić at a ceremony in Paris last week.

One of those journalists was Abdou Bonia from Comoros – a nation in East Africa – who was supposed to represent albaladcomores.com and voted for Kylian Mbappé to win the prestigious gong.

But the problem is, that publication has been inactive for six years, and nobody called Abdou Bonia has ever worked for it.

“I’m surprised to see that the Albakad Comores exists, so far as the newspaper knows, the newspaper has been closed for six years,” said Toimimou Abdo, who worked as a photographer for the newspaper while it still existed.

The revelation leaves France Football a little red faced but Bonia’s vote didn’t make much difference anyway as Modrić ultimately won by a whopping 277 points anyway.