Kylian Mbappe questions Rodri's Ballon d'Or victory | OneFootball

Kylian Mbappe has admitted his surprise over seeing Manchester City midfielder Rodri win the 2024 Ballon d'Or ahead of Real Madrid teammate Vinicius Junior.

Vinicius was the favourite to pick up football's most prestigious individual prize and Madrid officials were so stunned by the decision to hand the award to Rodri that they boycotted the entire event.

In an interview with Le Parisien, Mbappe was quizzed on Paris Saint-Germain forward Ousmane Dembele's chances of winning the Ballon d'Or this year, and he argued Rodri's victory means anything is possible in the award race.

"What is a Ballon d'Or player? Rodri, is he a Ballon d'Or player for you?" he began. "For me, at first, he wasn't one, I thought the Ballon d'Or would go to Vinicius but in the end, it was Rodri who got it.

"If I had told you that three months ago, you would have said to me, 'What are you talking about?'.

"Today, we don't know who the Ballon d'Or is going to, except that no one should be excluded, that all players can be rewarded, maybe even a goalkeeper."

Rodri was the surprise winner / Visionhaus/GettyImages

Ahead of Real Madrid's recent victory over City in the Champions League play-offs, manager Carlo Ancelotti insisted they were right to boycott the Ballon d'Or ceremony in support of Vinicius.

"I don't think it was the wrong decision," Ancelotti stressed. "We didn't want to participate because we thought that Vinicius was the winner of the Ballon d'Or.

"And this doesn't mean we have no respect of Rodri that won the Ballon d'Or because he is a fantastic player. But I think we thought, and I thought, that Rodri deserved to win the year before."