{"id":700403,"date":"2026-05-28T16:53:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T16:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/700403\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T16:53:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T16:53:09","slug":"football-soccer-london-to-host-ballon-dor-for-first-time-as-award-marks-70th-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/700403\/","title":{"rendered":"Football: Soccer-London to host Ballon d&#8217;Or for first time as award marks 70th anniversary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>LONDON, May 28 (Reuters) &#8211; \u2060This year&#8217;s Ballon d&#8217;Or awards \u2060ceremony will be held in London for \u200cthe first time on October 26, organisers said on Thursday, as the prestigious prize celebrates its \u200b70th anniversary.<\/p>\n<p>Created by France \u2060Football magazine in \u20601956, the Ballon d&#8217;Or is regarded as the \u2060most \u200ccoveted individual award in world football.<\/p>\n<p>The decision to stage the \u206070th edition in London was to \u200bpay tribute \u200cto England great Stanley Matthews, who \u2060became the \u200baward&#8217;s first winner seven decades ago, Europe&#8217;s football governing body UEFA said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;By staging its \u206070th edition in the \u200bcapital of England and the United Kingdom, the Ballon d&#8217;Or continues its expansion and further \u2060strengthens its status as a globally prestigious brand,&#8221; added UEFA.<\/p>\n<p>The precise venue for the ceremony, which traditionally takes place \u200bin Paris, is yet \u2060to be announced.<\/p>\n<p>Paris St Germain winger Ousmane \u200bDembele and Barcelona&#8217;s Aitana \u200cBonmati were the men&#8217;s and \u200bwomen&#8217;s winners in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>(Reporting by Lori Ewing; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON, May 28 (Reuters) &#8211; \u2060This year&#8217;s Ballon d&#8217;Or awards \u2060ceremony will be held in London for \u200cthe&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":700404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,6675,85],"class_list":["post-700403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-na","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=700403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/700404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}