L’Equipe, the official broadcast channel of the Golden Ball organizing committee, shared a photo intended to belittle Vinicius during the broadcast.

The incident occurred before the 2024 Ballon d’Or award ceremony, L’Equipe – the official channel of the Ballon d’Or broadcast the event live and in it they showed a parody image with the content of Lamine Yamal holding baby Vinicius. The incident quickly caused an explosion on social networks, many opinions criticized the broadcasting unit of the Ballon d’Or, accusing them of not showing respect to the Real Madrid striker.

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One person commented: “Disgusting. Whether you hate him or love him, he shouldn’t be put down like that.” A second person said indignantly: “I don’t like Vinicius, but this is disrespectful, shameless.” Even a fan who is said to be a Barca fan disagreed, saying: “I’m a Barca fan but this is unacceptable, it’s too much.”

Most of the comments were critical of L’Equipe, some even said it was a mistake to include Lamine Yamal in the incident. Especially when Yamal and Real Madrid recently had a bad relationship, in the Clasico Yamal, Gavi and some teammates had bad actions towards Los Blancos players when they won 4-0.

Currently, Vinicius and Real Madrid have not responded to the image broadcast by L’Equipe, but they have announced that they will ‘avoid’ the Golden Ball. An internal source from Bernabeu said that from now on, Real Madrid will not have the word “Golden Ball” in the team’s name, they will focus entirely on the matches and compete for the title.

After Rodri was awarded the 2024 Ballon d’Or, Vinicius posted a message mocking the organizers of this award. Meanwhile, Vinicius’ teammates unanimously expressed their support for the Brazilian striker.