How to watch, date, time, nominees, venue and voting explained

FIFA’s The Best awards may be trying to rival it, but the Ballon d’Or is still viewed as the highest individual award in football.

The debate over who should win the Ballon d’Or can often be tedious but it is nonetheless a historic part of the winner’s career. The award is handed out based on the recent season rather than the calendar year like The Best awards.

Here is all that you need to know about the 2023 edition of the Ballon d’Or.

The ceremony for the 2023 Ballon d’Or is scheduled to take place on Monday 16 October 16. As the award is run by French Football, the ceremony will be taking place at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, France.

It is expected that the ceremony will get underway at 20:00 UK time although that is subject to change.

The official details for the broadcasting of the Ballon d’Or are yet to be released with the ceremony being so far. For the 2022 edition, fans were able to watch the ceremony on the L’Equipe YouTube channel and website.

The other place the awards could be viewed was the Eurosport website and app. There is no reason at this stage to believe that the situation will change for the 2023 edition.

With a chunk of the 2022/23 season still left to play, the nominees are yet to be announced. In 2022, they were announced in August which offers a time frame as to how long fans will have to wait.

One of the overwhelming favourites is Lionel Messi, who was recently handed The Best award for men’s players. He has won the Ballon d’Or seven times in the past.

Players such as Kevin De Bruyne, Karim Benzema, Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland are expected to be in the frame but it remains to be seen who performs the best for the rest of the season.

Rather than being voted for by players, coaches and media as The Best awards are, the Ballon d’Or voting is solely undertaken by journalists.

At the 2022 Ballon d’Or, 100 journalists from FIFA’s top 100 nations selected their top five players from the 30-player shortlist that had previously been decided. They rank their five choices and a number of votes are awarded based on those rankings, as seen below.

Real Madrid’s Karim Benzema won the 2022 Ballon d’Or and received an incredible 549 votes, 356 more than second-placed Sadio Mane who had an incredible season with Liverpool before his move to Bayern Munich. That was the biggest-ever winning margin.

Messi stretched his lead over Ronaldo in the Ballon d’Or stakes to two trophies more with his 2021 triumph. That lead stayed in tact in 2022 as Benzema came out on top in the voting.

The Ballon d’Or was first handed out in 1956 when it was given to Blackpool and England legend Stanley Matthews. Most of the award’s history is dominated by European footballers, with George Weah becoming the first non-European to win the prize in 1995. Eligibility rules were changed that year and Ronaldo later became the first South American winner in 1997.