Pele, Maradona: Who would have won the Ballon d'Or if non-Europeans were always eligible?

Lionel Messi has the most Ballon d’Or trophies in history… or does he?

Cut the lights, cue dramatic ‘dun dun dun’ music and switch to the El Chiringuito studio losing their minds.

Ok, look, the answer is ultimately ‘yes’ and we’re not here to dispute that for one second because the record books are pretty clear on the fact that Messi‘s total of seven titles is simply unprecedented.

However, there is a world in which Messi would have been sharing the podium with Pele had France Football’s premier prize not been shut off to non-European footballers for as long as it was.

The difficulty of keeping tabs on football further afield in the pre-internet era meant that the Ballon d’Or was initially focused on the best male player for each year who represented a European national team.

It wasn’t until 1995 that the accolade was fanned out to players of any nationality who competed for a European club, before 2007 finally saw every professional footballer around the world becoming eligible.

And while these rule changes came in time for Messi to rampage his way to seven Ballon d’Or crowns with victories in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2019 and 2021, the alterations were too late in the day for Maradona and Pele.

The same can also be said for other non-European players who float around the peripheries of the GOAT debate such as Zico, Garrincha, Socrates, Carlos Alberto and Mario Kempes to name just a few.

However, now that we have a beautiful thing called hindsight, as well as the world wide web, to retrospectively look at the Ballon d’Or’s pre-1995 global potential, it’s possible to imagine an alternate history for the famous prize.

In fact, none other than France Football themselves did exactly that as they carried out a review