Tuesday12 November 2024
newspn.in.ua

Ballon d'Or winners in politics: from lawmakers to the presidency.

On Monday, October 28, the name of the 2024 Ballon d'Or winner was revealed. The ceremony, hosted by the prestigious magazine France Football, took place in the French capital, Paris, at the Théâtre du Châtelet. The award was claimed by Manchester City midfielder and Spain national team player Rodri.
Обладатели Золотого мяча в политике: от депутатов до президентов.

Meanwhile, looking at the list of winners from previous years, one can notice many who later intertwined their lives with politics, and many even achieved success.

George Weah

The only African footballer in history to be awarded by France Football (1995) retired from professional football in 2003. Fifteen years later, he became the president of his native Liberia. Notably, he held this position until January 2024 when his term ended. Weah's entry into politics was not spontaneous.

We all remember Weah as a star of PSG and AC Milan. After concluding his football career, George engaged in humanitarian and political activities, even running for the presidency of Liberia in 2005. Winning the first round of voting with 28% of the votes, he lost in the second round to 67-year-old Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who became the first female president in Africa's history.

At that time, Weah's lack of a high school diploma and his political inexperience played against him. However, by 2007, the star former footballer graduated from high school and four years later earned a degree with honors in business management from DeVry University in Florida. That same year, he unsuccessfully attempted to become vice president.

Success came to Weah in 2014 when he was elected senator of the western province of Montserrado, which includes the capital of Liberia, Monrovia.

Three years later, in October 2017, in the first round of the presidential elections in Liberia, Weah secured first place with 39% of the votes and advanced to the second round alongside Joseph Boakai. On December 26, 2017, Weah won the second round of voting, becoming the 25th president of Liberia.

In the 2023 presidential elections in Liberia, Weah received 49.11% in the second round but lost to his opponent Joseph Boakai, who narrowly won with 50.89% of the votes. George acknowledged his defeat and congratulated his political rival.

Weah cannot be fully labeled as a former footballer. He still plays in various veterans' matches. Additionally, he has two sons who are footballers with American citizenship. George Weah Jr. and Timothy Weah periodically represent the youth and national teams of the USA.

Weah became the only footballer to manage to become the head of a country. Even the legendary Pelé did not achieve this.

It's worth noting that it was Weah who presented the Ballon d'Or 2024 to Rodri.

Gianni Rivera

Long-time fans remember well the Milan player from the 60s and 70s, who won a lot both at the club level and as part of the Italian national team. While wearing the "rossoneri" jersey, he became a three-time Italian champion, a two-time UEFA Champions League winner, and a holder of the Intercontinental Cup. As part of the "Azzurri," he was the European champion (1968) and the vice-champion of the world in 1970. Rivera became a Ballon d'Or winner in 1969.

His life after retiring from playing was equally eventful. In 1979, Rivera became vice president of Milan and experienced a grand corruption scandal involving match-fixing and betting. Due to the scandal, the team was relegated to Serie B, and Rivera stepped down, only to return in 1985. He worked at the club until 1986 when Milan was purchased by Silvio Berlusconi, and Rivera voluntarily left the "rossoneri."

In 1987, Gianni joined the Christian Democratic Party and was elected to the lower house of the Italian parliament. After the dissolution of the CDP, Rivera became a deputy for the Sensi Pact (Democratic Party).

From 1994 to 1996, Rivera served as secretary of the Italian Parliament and president of the Sensi Pact. From 1996 to 2001, he worked as the undersecretary of the Italian Ministry of Defense. During his parliamentary career, Rivera changed his political affiliations several times; after leaving the Sensi Pact, he joined the Italian Renaissance, and later the Democratic Party and the Daisy party.

After the party mergers, he became a member of the Democratic Party. From April 2005, Rivera served as a member of the European Parliament from the Olive Tree coalition, receiving 45,000 votes in the northwestern district of Italy, as an independent deputy. In February 2008, Rivera joined the centrist party White Rose. The former footballer was also a member of the Italian Commission for the Protection of the Internal Market and Consumers and an advisor on sports policy in the municipality of Rome.

While engaged in politics, Rivera did not forget about football. In particular, he invested money to help young footballers. Now, at 81 years old, the footballer and politician is enjoying a well-deserved retirement.

Oleg Blokhin

The star of Kyiv's Dynamo in the 1970s and 80s and the 1975 Ballon d'Or winner, Oleg Blokhin entered politics during the time of independent Ukraine, being elected twice to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. Interestingly, throughout this period, he was an active coach of several Greek teams and later the Ukrainian national team.

In 1998, he entered the parliament on the lists of the All-Ukrainian Union "Hromada" (16th on the list), which was created in early 1997 by the controversial former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko. However, it cannot be said that Blokhin was a loyal ally of Lazarenko. He was a member of the "Hromada" faction for only a year before spending two years in the Fatherland faction. In the summer of 2001, he joined the Communist Party of Ukraine.

It was from the CPU (10th on the list) that Blokhin ran for parliament in 2002 and was re-elected. However, after five months, he switched to the faction of the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (United), and in 2003 became a member of the political council of the Social Democrats. The leadership of the SDPU(o) included FC Dynamo president Hryhoriy Surkis, former president of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk, and former MP Viktor Medvedchuk. In the IV convocation of parliament, he was a member of the committee on youth policy, physical culture, sports, and tourism, and served as the head of the subcommittee on Olympic, Paralympic movements and elite sports.

Eventually, in the 2006 elections, Blokhin ran for the Verkhovna Rada as No. 10 on the list of the Opposition Bloc "Not That!", formed on the basis of the SDPU(o). The bloc failed to cross the 3% electoral threshold, garnering only 1.01% of the votes. After that, Blokhin definitively stepped away from politics and focused on his career as a football coach.

Andriy Shevchenko

In the career of the current president of the Ukrainian Football Association and the 2004 Ballon d'Or winner, Andriy Shevchenko, there have been several episodes related to politics. His participation in the 2012 parliamentary elections is just one of them.

Back in the late 90s, while playing for Dynamo, he supported the SDPU(o) along with his team. In the 2004 presidential elections, already a star of AC Milan, Shevchenko publicly endorsed the candidacy of Viktor Yanukovych.

It is not surprising that in the fall of 2012, Shevchenko ran for the Verkhovna Rada from the party "Ukraine – Forward," whose leader, Natalia Korolevska, was also considered a pro-Russian politician. In 2014, she became a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada from the Opposition Bloc, formed on the basis of Yanukovych's Party of Regions.

Shevchenko's political journey was probably the shortest among all the former footballers we presented. In the elections, his party garnered only 1.58% of the votes and did not secure any seats in parliament (Shevchenko was second on the party list, behind Korolevska). And with that, his political career came to a halt.

On September 26, 2023, Shevchenko was appointed a non-staff advisor to the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. Four months later, on January 25, 2024, he was elected president of the UAF. Many experts also consider the role of the head football official in the country as not purely football-related but rather "political."

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Recently, the Champion wrote in an article dedicated to the parliamentary elections in Georgia about the well-known former player of Kyiv Dynamo and AC Milan, and now the mayor of Tbilisi, Kakha Kaladze, who is part of the pro-Russian party "Georgian Dream." At one time, he never became a Ballon d'Or winner. Besides Kaladze, other famous footballers who have not received the award have also ventured into politics, including Romário, José Luis Chil