Alejandro Balde’s chances of winning the Golden Boy Web award have been severely compromised by his taste in music.
The Barcelona left back is among the top candidates for the award given to the top men’s player under the age of 21 at a European club.
But an offhand comment the 19-year-old made in an interview with Mundo Deportivo looks to have proven costly — at least when it comes to the award decided on a fan vote. Balde, you see, offended fans of Taylor Swift by having the temerity to suggest he wasn’t a fan of her music.
The Swifties, known to be a devoted and very online bunch, struck back with a vengeance.
Hey Swifties! 🫵👋 we can’t let this Balde guy win the golden boy award 😡💅 Vote for Jude Bellingham here 🫠👇
#TaylorSwift #1989TaylorsVersion https://t.co/705IUsahAk pic.twitter.com/8Y6m2uRmFF
— Not Python 🐍 (@notpythonn) September 5, 2023
❗Alejandro Balde was leading the race in the fan vote of the Golden Boy 2023. Jude Bellingham had 30k votes.
But suddenly, in just 7 minutes Jude suddenly got almost 100k new votes, when the fan vote in total had around 100k votes in a couple of hours. @martinminan_ pic.twitter.com/gP6ZwCLsnc
— Managing Barça (@ManagingBarca) September 5, 2023
Within minutes on Tuesday, Balde went from having the lead in the voting to falling way behind Real Madrid’s Jude Bellingham. As of this moment, Bellingham leads Balde by a nearly two-to-one margin.
It should be noted that the Swifties only have so much power here. The voting is for the Golden Boy Web award, which is strictly decided by a fan vote. The actual Golden Boy award, meanwhile, will be determined by a jury of journalists from around Europe.
Balde can only hope that group of media members doesn’t contain too many Swifties.
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