The Ballon d’Or will not be awarded in 2020 due to the “strange” sporting conditions caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the event’s organizers, Group L’Equipe, said, according to The Associated Press’ Jerome Pugmire.

It will be the first time a footballer hasn’t been handed the prize since Blackpool’s Stanley Matthews won the inaugural Ballon d’Or in 1956. Megan Rapinoe took home the second-ever Ballon d’Or Feminin in 2019 while Lionel Messi collected his sixth Ballon d’Or.

“It’s such a strange year that we couldn’t treat it as an ordinary one. Let’s say that we started talking about (making the decision) at least two months ago,” Pascal Ferre, the editor of L’Equipe subsidiary France Football, told Pugmire.

“It isn’t a decision we took lightly but we had to accept it couldn’t be a normal or typical Ballon d’Or winner, and what really worried us is that it wouldn’t be fairly awarded.”

Ferre indicated the game’s modified laws and revamped calendar prompted by the coronavirus outbreak have harmed the integrity of the Ballon d’Or.

“The season started with certain rules and ended with other rules. In January and February, soccer was played in front of full stands. Then from May and June, it was with empty stands,” he explained.

“Then we had the five substitutes rule and not three. Then other changes happened in terms of the competitions, notably the final eight (eight-team knockout format) for the Champions League when it had started with home and away legs.”

Players’ performances in the abbreviated final rounds of the Champions League would’ve heavily influenced the award’s outcome with Euro 2020 and the Copa America both postponed due to the pandemic.

The Kopa Trophy and the Lev Yashin award – the prizes given to the best player under 21 and best goalkeeper, respectively – have also been canceled, Ferre confirmed. Players were not informed of the decision to cancel the awards before Monday’s announcement.

Ferre insists that the distinctions will be handed out in 2021 even if the coronavirus impacts the football season in the same way.

“It would be less of a problem in terms of fairness, because this time around we’ve had two parts to the season: normal and not normal,” Ferre said. “Imagine that in 2021 all matches are played behind closed doors (without fans) and with five subs. We would adapt, because it would be comparable.”

Ferre revealed a France Football Dream Team will be produced by the magazine’s jury of 180. The lineup will feature the greatest players in the sport’s history and will be released sometime in the fall.

How could UEFA get it so wrong?

Manchester City’s two-year European ban was overturned on Monday, but it wasn’t because they proved themselves innocent on all counts of financial misconduct. Rather, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) found that UEFA failed to follow its own guidelines in levying the suspension to begin with.

“Prosecution is barred after five years for all breaches of the UEFA club licensing and FFP (Financial Fair Play) regulations,” a critical part of UEFA’s Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) handbook states.

Was digging up cases dating back to 2014 an inexcusable oversight on the part of some sloppy lawyers at the CFCB’s adjudicatory chamber? Was UEFA arrogant to assume it could bend its own rules without being challenged? Or was it, as some City fans would have you believe, part of UEFA’s unyielding agenda against the side from the old industrial wastelands of east Manchester?

Many questions will be cleared up in the coming days when the CAS releases its full findings from its base in Lausanne, Switzerland, but one thing is for certain: The rich, ambitious, and nitwitted in European football will now be tempted to overspend and perhaps deliberately shun FFP regulations.

The Saudi Arabian-led consortium seeking to take over Newcastle United, for example, will back itself to hire a skilled team of lawyers who can pick holes in UEFA’s statutes should the Magpies be found to have spent beyond their means over the next few years. By foolishly disregarding its own five-year rule when trying to block Manchester City from the Champions League, UEFA showed that – in this case, at least – its courtroom clout is pretty feeble. UEFA’s embarrassing loss serves as an open invitation for other clubs to try to sidestep FFP.

City’s “obstruction of the investigations,” as the CAS described in Monday’s media release, was an indication of guilt. The club insisted it was innocent yet denied UEFA access to the evidence that could apparently prove this. The door was shut in UEFA’s face.

But City still won, escaping with just a €10-million fine for refusing to comply with UEFA’s probe. That’s nearly identical to what they paid in 2015 for Patrick Roberts, who has never started a league match for City. For this club, €10 million is the spare change under the sofa cushions.

On the surface, letting Kevin De Bruyne, Raheem Sterling, and the rest of Manchester City’s superstars in the Champions League for the next two years doesn’t seem a terrible punishment for UEFA. City have established themselves as one of the most entertaining teams since the Abu Dhabi United Group took over the club in 2008. Pep Guardiola’s attacking philosophy is a boon for television audiences.

And that is vital for UEFA right now. Some argue the chief reason behind establishing FFP in 2011 was to protect its elite, to only allow the wealthy to spend. Whether the governing body likes it or not, City are part of that elite. The income gained from City’s participation in the Champions League – over that of say, Leicester City or Sheffield United – is more important than ever when the coronavirus could cause a £1-billion shortfall for Premier League clubs and has worsened the crippling losses at teams like Barcelona. There isn’t as much money sloshing around in European football amid the pandemic.

“We follow the UEFA rules. They dictate what we have to do, and we do it,” a feisty Guardiola told reporters on Tuesday, according to The Athletic’s Sam Lee. “People have to understand right now that we are here to try to compete on the pitch and at the same level as the elite clubs in the Premier League but in Europe too. We can be here.”

Monday’s judgment undoubtedly strikes a heavy blow to FFP. UEFA’s financial small print was already set aside during the pandemic, but the organization insists FFP isn’t dead. European football’s administrative body and the European Club Association “remain committed to its principles,” reads UEFA’s statement on the CAS vanquishing City’s ban.

In some ways, FFP works. Europe’s top-flight clubs combined for €5 billion in losses in the three years preceding the implementation of FFP; then, a report for the financial year of 2018 showed the continent’s leading outfits had made a collective profit in back-to-back years.

But City showed there are gaps to be exploited. For UEFA to protect itself against further humiliation in the future, there needs to be more stringent guidelines – perhaps a continent-wide salary cap – otherwise, this won’t be the last time it’s trampled by one of the clubs under its umbrella.

Victor Font, an opponent of Josep Maria Bartomeu in Barcelona’s 2021 election for the club presidency, fears the Catalonian giants are at risk of falling out of contention for the top domestic and continental honors.

“Competition over the last decade has become more and more professional,” Font told BBC Radio 5 Live, according to BBC Sport.

“You see in the Premier League with clubs well-managed, and even states owning clubs to put in a lot of money at a time where the finance of the club and economic model is stretched to the limit.

“Unless we do what we are trying, Barca has the risk of becoming a new AC Milan or a Manchester United.”

Milan haven’t won the Serie A title since the 2010-11 campaign, while United are still rebuilding after Sir Alex Ferguson stepped down as manager in 2013.

Font says he’s been working on his presidential “project” for seven years and believes he can arrest the slide that could see Barcelona “not able to compete for the top titles.” He described the jobs to oversee during the next few years – replacing an aging generation, renovating the Camp Nou, and dealing with the financial strain caused by the coronavirus pandemic – as the “perfect storm.”

Real Madrid ended Barcelona’s two-year La Liga reign Thursday when Zinedine Zidane’s side beat Villarreal by a 2-1 scoreline. To further underline Barcelona’s recent slump during Bartomeu’s presidential reign, Quique Setien’s throng was humbled 2-1 at home by Real Osasuna on the same day.

Lionel Messi appeared despondent for large chunks of that affair and blasted his team after the match for being “very weak” throughout the season.

“He is unhappy and doubting what to do next,” Font said of Messi’s situation. “He is probably a bit frustrated as year after year he is not able to win, especially the Champions League. That’s where the focus needs to be.

“We want to ensure he understands if we were to run the club from next summer onward, we would put all the conditions to equip him in the best possible way so the last years of his career here he can still aspire to win a couple of Champions Leagues.”

Font wants to bring Xavi back to Barcelona as head coach. Xavi, the former midfielder who won four Champions Leagues and eight La Liga titles with Barca, is currently in charge of Qatari side Al-Sadd.

Nothing riles up the football community quite like a rule change.

With five substitutes available instead of the traditional three, there’s considerable debate about the potential effects of the relief measure. The International Football Associated Board amended the rule to keep players fresh during the pandemic, but who’s to say it won’t become a permanent addition to the so-called Laws of the Game?

Some believe the exemption encourages managers to rotate their squads, while others insist it only extends the gap from the elite and encourages the world’s richest clubs to stockpile talent.

Here, theScore’s Anthony Lopopolo and Daniel Rouse make the case for both sides of the discussion.

Keep it, it’s good for the game

Lopopolo: Anything that supports players’ welfare is good for the sport. We have to remember how often these guys play. Some of them reach upwards of 60 matches per season, and that’s not even including international friendlies and fixtures, which seem to increase by the year. It’s a ridiculous workload, and, quite frankly, the reason why so many games descend into unwatchable dross.

Managers can now ease the load on these players and give chances to those who’d otherwise rot on the bench. They can even fill out their squad with youngsters from the academy and offer a legitimate route into the first team. Pep Guardiola, for example, has lamented on several occasions that he couldn’t give Phil Foden enough playing time. That’s possible with an additional two substitutes in the offing.

It’s not only the biggest clubs that benefit, either. Teams that sit lower in the table could change tactics midgame and replace players in high-energy positions more frequently. We could see more comebacks this way. No lead would be safe.

The rule would also embolden managers to swap out any concussed player. Coaches wouldn’t have to worry about losing a substitution. They could put health first for a change and make a sub they would’ve thought twice about in the past.

Ditch it, it’s another tweak that helps the elite

Rouse: The issue with overworked players lies primarily with football authorities shoehorning in as many fixtures as possible, rather than whether someone can be subbed off after 76 minutes. FIFA & Co. will be tempted to cram in more matches if the game’s biggest stars are getting more rest.

“There was not one day where FIFA, UEFA, the Premier League, (and) the Football League sit at a table and think about the players and not about their wallet,” Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp said of fixture congestion in November.

One of the main problems is that it threatens to make the gap between the best and the rest even greater. Manchester City called Gabriel Jesus, Kevin De Bruyne, Aymeric Laporte, and Leroy Sane off the bench last month against Burnley – and had the luxury of leaving Raheem Sterling, Benjamin Mendy, Kyle Walker, and Ilkay Gundogan unused – while the Clarets could fill only seven of their allotted nine substitutes, two of whom were goalkeepers. That’s hardly an even playing field. City won 5-0.

Clubs with greater resources can also make in-game changes to prepare for their next fixture. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer took off Paul Pogba, Bruno Fernandes, Anthony Martial, Marcus Rashford, and Mason Greenwood all at once when his side was 3-0 up against Sheffield United a few weeks ago. Free-scoring Manchester United can do that, but when do the Blades have the luxury of resting that many players at the end of matches?

I’ve left the most serious issue to last: extra substitutes reduces the likelihood of an outfield player going in goal, and we all enjoy that.