It has been said that the winner is decided by 100 journalists each picking their top 10 players of the year.
These 100 journalists come from each country of the latest FIFA rankings. The journalists are specialists and experts. But even before the players are picked by these 100 journalists, other experts already have handpicked 30 players before it even reaches the journalists. Obviously, credibility of these people should not be questioned as they have been working in the sport for a long time and are also interested in maintaining the integrity of the sport.
Is it possible that these journalists may be affected by some personal bias or patriotism? How objective is this award and is this deciding method really the best?
I can’t think of a better method, to be honest.
We can’t let fans choose certainly as they will be even more biased. They are just going to vote for their favorite athlete no matter what. Maybe there is some patriotism that could affect the juror’s decision but since there’s a lot of them and are from different countries I would say it balances out and at the end the athlete with most points (highest in the order chosen by the jurors) get awarded the ballon d’Or.