Votes for the Ballon d'Or have closed and in a week, we will know who will succeed Rodri at the list of the most prestigious of the individual distinctions of the football planet. If the two favorites for victory are known (Ousmane Dembélé and Lamine Yamal), The Athletic made an investigation into the last controversy that tapped the competition. An Australian journalist, Neal Gardner, has indeed received an email from a communication agency offering him to highlight the candidacy of Dembélé. A paid proposal that Gardner refused, before publishing the content of the email on its social networks. “We are considering a one -month campaign aimed at causing dialogue and strengthening the discourse around the candidacy of Ousmane Dembélé to the Ballon d'Or. More specifically, we would like to offer three tweets carefully written per week for a month, which will highlight its performance, its impact and the arguments in favor of its recognition. Given your credibility and influence within the football community, your participation would give significant weight to this conversation. At this point, we would like to ask you for a quote for this collaboration. »»
Who could have been at the origin of this daring proposal? The Athletic conducted his investigation and after contacting the Dembélé clan, which assured that he was not aware of this case, it turns out that this email comes from a company called Bangrr International, based in India and founded by Ali Husain, whose website is described as “a power of new generation in matters of marketing, advertising and content, redefining the storytelling of luxury brands”. Faced with the controversy, Husain responded to the American media by ensuring that the email received by Neal Gardner is the initiative of an 18 -year -old trainee. “This email was a spontaneous request sent by a young trainee from our agency. Student passionate about football, advertising and digital content, the trainee had noticed the recent message from Mr. Gardner evoking collaboration requests. This gave him the idea of conducting personal research on how influencers and journalists structure their partnerships for the promotion of brands, especially in the football sector. The trainee has seen this as an opportunity to get to know another segment of the digital landscape … (and) sent a speculative message to learn about the standard rates of the sector. It was an isolated initiative motivated by educational curiosity, not a directive of our agency or a campaign commissioned by a third party. »»
