Neymar Jr. was also conspicuously absent from the 30 nominees.
The nominees for the award were released on Friday with two of these big names missing. Messi had won the past two Ballon d’Ors. He has also won it five other times in his career. In addition, he has also consistently finished either second or third in the voting.
Neymar Jr, who is yet to win an award, finished third in the voting in 2015 and again in 2017.
The two both play for Paris St Germain for the 2021-2022 season. Messi scored 11 goals this year but apparently, that was not enough to get a nomination. Neymar, on the other hand, had an injury-shortened campaign. He only played in 28 matches.
Messi controversially won the award last year over favorite Robert Lewandowski.
The favorite to win this year is Karim Benzema who made 44 goals this season.
The awarding ceremony will be held on October 17. Changes have been made to how players are nominated. They will be based on the performances in the past season and not for the calendar year.
France Football, which has run the awarding since 1956 also limited media voters to the top 100 countries in the Mens FIFA ranking and the Top 50 for women’s FIFA.
The criteria for nomination have also been narrowed down to:
- Individual performance in theprevious season
- Team success during the previousseason
- Player behavior and fair play duringthe season in consideration
In addition to the Ballon d’Or nominees, the nominees for the Kopa Trophy and the Yashin Trophy nominees were also announced.