The Ballon d’Or arrives in London on Monday, and Kate Scott, who co-hosts the ceremony with Thierry Henry, says the men she works with on CBS Sports have not agreed on a winner. Her account of their picks, given in an interview with British GQ, suggests that loyalties are doing as much work as football.
Three colleagues, three leanings
Asked whether Henry, Micah Richards, Jamie Carragher and she had a sweepstake, Scott said they had talked about it but had not set one up. She then gave her version of where each stands. This is her description of her colleagues, not their own words, so we treat it as her account.
Henry, she said, “is just going with French, so he’s going with Mbappé as he’s the player he has the closest personal relationship with”. Carragher is “very pro-English so he will always root for Harry Kane in that scenario”. Richards says Mbappé is “his first love”, but “he loves Lamine Yamal too and also thinks Harry Kane would be fantastic for the English”, which led Scott to conclude that “he’s all over the place”.
It is a revealing split. Each pundit’s inclination is tied to a relationship, a nationality or a club of the heart. The result is not an argument about merit so much as a reminder that a vote is partly personal.
Scott’s own test: what is the award rewarding?
Scott’s view is more analytical. She said it is “so hard to know what the Ballon d’Or is rewarding because that has evolved over the years”, and set out three possible readings.
“If it’s extraordinary goal scoring, then it has to be Harry Kane because his numbers are through the roof,” she said. “If it’s big performances on the bigger stages, I guess you’d say Mbappé was so influential in the World Cup and all Real Madrid’s big games.” Yamal, in her words, “is that player who just creates magic”, and she singled out his rabona against Galatasaray.
The framing matters because it explains why a three-way race can feel so close. Scott says the script she has seen keeps repeating that this is “the closest title race in years”, though she says she does not know the winner.
Why the English case is strong
Scott made a specific argument for Kane: it has been 25 years since a British player won, when Michael Owen did. “If Harry Kane doesn’t win it this year, it almost makes you think, ‘God, what would he have to do to win it?’” she said. She described him as likeable and noted that he has often missed out on the biggest silverware, adding that whoever wins, “you can say yeah, there’s a fair argument for him winning”.
She contrasted Kane’s approach with Yamal’s. Kane, in her telling, is humble when he speaks about himself, while Yamal is “young and brash”, and Mbappé may have felt he had to match that energy. She also thought clubs had been unusually tribal about the award, which she compared to “influencing the jury”.
The counter-view
Scott’s own analysis leaves room for a different pick from the one Carragher favours. If the award is for big-stage influence, the argument shifts towards Mbappé. If it is for sheer creativity, it goes to Yamal. Only the goals-based reading points straight to Kane, and Scott herself notes that the award has changed its emphasis over time.
None of the three picks is argued on those terms in Scott’s account, which is the point: the pundits’ leanings come from loyalty, and the case on merit is left to the voters. For earlier disagreements among the same panel, see our look at how Neville and Carragher read the same City team differently. On Monday night at the London Palladium, we will find out which reading the voters preferred.
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