Vinicius Junior, Real Madrid Boycott The 2024 Ballon d'Or Awards Ceremony.

• Vinícius Júnior and his Real Madrid teammates will reportedly not travel to Paris for the Ballon d'Or ceremony on Monday, because they believe Manchester City midfielder Rodri is set to win the award.

• No one from Real Madrid will attend the ceremony. No Florentino Pérez, no Carlo Ancelotti, no Jude Bellingham.

• The first time in 10 years where no Real Madrid player wins the Ballon d’Or after winning the Champions League.

Vinícius Jr., was widely believed to be a leading contender to win the 2024 men's prize after his sensational performance of winning the double with Real Madrid last season (the LaLiga and Champions League).

The Brazil international was nominated alongside his fellow teammates Jude Bellingham, Dani Carvajal, Kylian Mbappé, Antonio Rüdiger, Federico Valverde, as well as Andriy Lunin, nominated for best goalkeeper, Arda Güler, nominated for the Kopa Trophy, and Carlo Ancelotti, nominated for best coach.

But they would not be attending the event, organized by the French Football magazine, in collaboration with UEFA.

This is the first year where UEFA is involved with Ballon d’Or. 

Real Madrid believes that it was UEFA who decided that Vini Jr shouldn't win the Ballon d'Or, for non-football reasons, they even cancelled the RMTV Balllon d’Or broadcast.

Reports earlier suggested that Spain manager Luis De La Fuente will win Coach Of The Year at Ballon d'Or, but now different sources have confirmed that Carlo Ancelotti will win it.

Vinícius scored 15 goals in LaLiga last season, as well as six in the Champions League, including in Madrid's semifinal win over Bayern Munich and in the final against Borussia Dortmund.

The feeling in Madrid in recent weeks had been that the forward was likely to claim the award, the final decision was surprising because all the information they got until Saturday was that Vinicius won, but that's not the case right now.

50 people with Florentino Perez were reportedly ready to travel. 

Vinicius’ sponsors and Nike planned to dress their entire store in Gran Vía in gold.

Vinicius had recently scored a second-half hat trick in Madrid's comeback 5-2 Champions League victory against Dortmund last week, before featuring in a disappointing 4-0 defeat to Barcelona in the Clásico on Saturday.

In the summer, the 24-year-old scored twice for Brazil in the Copa America, both goals coming in a 4-1 win over Paraguay, but struggled in the tournament overall, as they were eliminated by Uruguay in the quarterfinals.

Meanwhile his closest contender for the prestigious award, Rodri was a key figure in Man City's 2023-24 Premier League title and then starred for Spain as they won the 2024 Euros.

Real Madrid are not against Rodri winning the Ballon d’Or, but they do not understand the criteria to give it to him because he has the same merits that Dani Carvajal has, and he also won the Champions League.

Real Madrid sources stated: “If the award criteria rule out Vinicius as the winner, the same criteria must make Carvajal the winner. Since that was not the case, it is clear that the Ballon d'Or and UEFA do not respect Real Madrid. Real Madrid will not be where they are not respected.” 

Vinicius would have been the first Brazilian to win the men's Ballon d'Or since Kaká in 2007. His compatriot Ronaldo Nazário was going to present him with the Ballon d’Or.

The last Los Blancos player to win the prize was French forward Karim Benzema in 2022 before he departed to Saudi Arabia and last year (2023) Lionel Messi won the award for a record eighth time.

Viní Jr stars in 2023/24:

• 3791 minutes

• 26 goals

• 13 assists

• UEFA Champions League winner

• La Liga winner

• Supercopa winner

• UEFA Champions League POTS

• 4 goals in 2 finals

• Hattrick in Supercopa final

• Goal in UCL Final

• 7 G/A in UCL KO

• 12 MOTM

• 2 MOTM in 2 UCL semis

• MOTM in SC Final

• 3 x Real Madrid POTM