The Ballon d’Or is one of football’s most celebrated events, recognising outstanding individual achievements on the pitch. But beyond the awards and the names that make football history, sport has the power to communicate something much bigger: values, leadership, resilience and hope.
Following the latest Ballon d’Or ceremony in London, Gian Marco Gilardi shares his personal reflections on the evening, highlighting the speeches that left the strongest impression on him, the importance of women’s representation in sport, and the qualities that define true leadership — both on and off the pitch.
Here are his thoughts.
“Yesterday evening we could take part to a really outstanding event. Being a great football fan I have been following the Ballon D’Or since many years. I remember the old days when the prize was assigned to the Swan of Utrecht and The Captain Franco Baresi to more recent times with Cristiano and La Pulga. Yesterday we felt the importance of transmitting worldwide important messages of peace and hope, especially in these difficult times. The management of the international sport bodies can be discussed like the activities of today’s politicians worldwide.
What is important and cannot be put in question are the values which are transmitted to the new generations via the sport. We heard several messages in this direction yesterday. We felt very close and impacted, in particular, from three speeches. The one by Saka, who received the Socrates award. The one of Luis de La Fuente, how you can work your career out from the lowest to the highest levels.
Finally, even more impacting, the words by Alexa Putellas. It does not matter who you are and in what form you do it. Just do it and do what you feel. Just practice it. It is even more impacting the fact that this message comes from such an outstanding athlete from the women sport.
We sincerely hope that, finally, the world understands the importance of women in sport and other context. Sure, we have other important global leaders in women football that could have been on the stage yesterday, I think for instance at Kosovare Asslani, who, like Zlatan at his time, is recovering from an important injury to give the world of football an example of what leadership and mentorship means.
A final word for Harry Kane. It would be too much reductive to think that the prize “had to be assigned” to an English player. Yesterday the prize has been assigned to a man, a sport leader, that has proved everyone that there are no barriers to evolve and aspire at higher successes, improving every year his performance. These are the values of a person that is supported since his 11 years by a woman that later became his wife.
Values, once again, a real leader in life knows where he or she comes from and leads by example, without too many unnecessary words.
Thanks again Jean-Jerome Perrin-Mortier and Peace & Sport for the excellent night by we could spend yesterday at Palladium London.”