Franck Ribery: I deserved to win the Ballon d'Or

Franck Ribery of France poses for a portrait prior to the FIFA Ballon d’Or Gala 2013 at the Park Hyatt hotel on January 13, 2014 in Zurich, Switzerland.

Franck Ribery is still mourning his loss out on the Ballon d’Or award last week as he was beaten into third place by Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo and Barcelona’s Lionel Messi for the FIFA award, despite winning five trophies in the calendar year with his club Bayern Munich.

“I won everything I could win with Bayern and individually. Ronaldo on the other hand did not win anything,” he told AZ.

“I am not sad that I missed out, but it does hurt a bit. I deserved to win the Ballon d’Or.”

“It was clear that Cristano Ronaldo would win it. The voting deadline was extended by two weeks.”

Apparently, Ribery is gutted about the fact that the voting deadline for voting for the 2013 Ballon d’Or was extended to November 29 to favour Cristiano Ronaldo over other leading contenders such as Lionel Messi, Franck Ribery and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, after the Portugal captain’s hat trick against Sweden which sealed his nation’s place at next year’s World Cup finals in Brazil.

“This had never happened before. It wasn’t about football. It was a political decision,” he added.

Ribery did make it onto the FIFPro World XI along with Bayern team mates Manuel Neuer and Philipp Lahm, although he missed out on becoming the first Bundesliga and first Bayern player to win the individual award.