66th Ballon d’Or: Real Madrid’s Karim Benzema won the Ballon d’Or 2022; Alexia Putellas wins Women’s Ballon d’Or 2022 

Real Madrid’s Karim Benzema, a professional French footballer, has won the Men’s Ballon d’Or (Golden Ball Award) 2022 and becomes the 5th Frenchman to win the prize. Barcelona’s Alexia Putellas, a Spanish professional footballer, has won the Women’s Ballon d’Or award or Ballon d’Or Féminin Award for the 2nd time.

• The  66th edition of the Ballon d’Or Ceremony (2022) was held on 17th October 2022 at the Théâtre du Châtelet. Paris, France.

About Ballon d’Or: 

i.The Ballon d’Or is annually presented by the the French magazine ‘France Football’, since 1956. The inaugural Ballon d’Or was presented to Stanley Matthews of Blackpool in 1956.

ii.This is one of the oldest and most prestigious individual award for football player.

iii.The Women’s Ballon d’Or was introduced in 2018.

Note:

The most number of Ballon d’Or was received by Lionel Messi. He tops the list with 7 awards followed by Cristiano Ronaldo with 5 awards.

Other Winners:

i.Pablo Martín Páez Gavira (Gavi) won the Kopa Trophy 2022. Kopa trophy is awarded to the best performing player under the age of 21.

ii.Barcelona striker Robert Lewandowski won the 2022 Gerd Müller Award as the world’s best striker.

iii.Thibaut Courtois, goalkeeper for La Liga club Real Madrid and the Belgium national team,  has received the 2022 Yashin Trophy. He was voted as the finest goalkeeper of the 2021/22 season.

iv.Following the successful season Manchester City was named as the “Club of the Year 2022”.

Socrates Awards:

Liverpool/Bayern Munich and Senegalese star Sadio Mane has been honored with the inaugural Socrates Awards(2022) for his charity works.

• The Award recognize the best social initiative in the game.

Awards and Winners