Arsenal’s Vivianne Miedema says ‘I didn`t feel appreciated as a woman footballer’ at Ballon d’Or by Michelle
Arsenal’s Vivianne Miedema and Beth Mead were both nominated for the prestigious Ballon d’Or Feminin this year. Viv and Beth, who are partners, attended the ceremony together with Beth Mead coming 2nd to Barcelona’s Alexis Putellas who also won the award the previous year.
I didn’t feel appreciated as a woman footballer there, she told the BBC’s Behind the Goals podcast.
If they want to have women involved, they have to do it in a different way.
They had five or six different awards for the men’s game while the women only have one. If they want to make it equal, they have to give the same awards to men’s and women’s football.
Six of the categories at the 2022 Ballon d’Or ceremony honoured male players only, including the main eponymous trophy won by Karim Benzema, the Kopa Trophy best young male player, the Yashin Trophy for best male goalkeeper and Gerd Muller Trophy for top men’s goal scorer. The Club of the Year Trophy is decided across both men’s and women’s teams, while the inaugural Socrates Award went to Sadio Mane for his charity work.
Only the Ballon d’Or Feminin is solely dedicated to women’s football.
A picture caption from the red carpet described Miedema as being with a nameless “guest”.
Vivianne said: Waking up the next morning and that picture pops up, that states the issue we had the night before.
We’ve got the number two from that year, who should arguably have been number one, turning up to the event as ‘my guest’. That would obviously never happen if Messi and Neymar had been walking next to each other.
We obviously joke about it, but that shows there are so many improvements to be made, it needs to be organised so much better.
The Dutch international, who has 115 caps for the Netherlands and with 95 goals is the top goal scorer for her national team (across men and women) and the top goal scorer in the Women’s Super League for Arsenal, said that while she and Mead could laugh at the gaffe, it also illustrated how women’s football is still disrespected in some areas.
I agree wholeheartedly with Miedema’s point of view. Women footballers should have and equal opportunity of receiving Ballon d’Or awards across the categories. What are your thoughts on the subject?
Michelle Maxwell
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