Since I don’t follow soccer/football whatsoever – SORRY – I had to wiki “Ballon d’Or.” Ballon d’Or is a prestigious annual football award which has traditionally gone to the best male football player from the previous year of play. The award is handed out by the French Football association, and the award is voted on by sports journalists. It’s been happening since 1956, and this year was the first year that the organization decided to also recognize the best female football player of the year and give her a separate Ballon d’Or Award. This year’s winner is Ada Hegerberg, a Norwegian woman who has spent her entire career just killing it. While I’m not a football person, this video gave me goosebumps:
🇳🇴 Olympique Lyonnais player Ada Hegerberg wins the first women's Ballon d'Or of the history! #ballondor pic.twitter.com/VftyQ8VDec
— #ballondor (@francefootball) December 3, 2018
So, she’s an incredible player, a once-in-a-generation athlete, she’s this generation’s Mia Hamm, and literally millions of little girls and little boys just flat-out worship her. She’s such a groundbreaking talent that a prestigious French football organization changed their rules just to give her an award. When she got up to receive the Ballon d’Or, she gave a speech about working hard and achieving her dreams and wanting to inspire little girls. And then the host, a DJ d-bag named Martin Solveig, asked her to twerk. Ugh.
Imagine winning the first EVER women's Ballon d'Or.
Then giving an unbelievable speech about how big this is for women's football.
Then asking little girls to believe in themselves.
THEN being asked to twerk. Fuck off dude. pic.twitter.com/MkbL5KZalD
— Frances Silva (@fasilva11) December 3, 2018
The disrespect was real. The horror and disgust was palpable. Within a few hours, Solveig apologized and tried to act like it was all some big misunderstanding:
Sincere apologies to the one I may have offended. My point was : I don’t invite women to twerk but dance on a Sinatra song. Watch the full sequence People who have followed me for 20 years know how respectful I am especially with women pic.twitter.com/pnZX8qvl4R
— Martin Solveig (@martinsolveig) December 3, 2018
I explained to @AdaStolsmo the buzz and she told me she understood it was a joke. Nevertheless my apologies to anyone who may have been offended. Most importantly congratulations to Ada pic.twitter.com/DATdg0TfQk
— Martin Solveig (@martinsolveig) December 3, 2018
She was doing what women have done since the beginning of time: pretending to be unbothered so that some douche-bro’s fragile ego won’t get hurt.
Sir Andy Murray, Tennis Feminist, was really f–king pissed off about this too.
Andy Murray on women's Ballon d'Or winner Ada Hegerberg being asked to twerk on stage tonight… pic.twitter.com/XWhchKnWvW
— Stuart Fraser (@stu_fraser) December 3, 2018
Photos courtesy of Getty.
The whole show was a giant trainwreck, very cringy. The DJ was a dick.
I am extatic Modrić won though. Such a historical moment. The video of his father’s reaction and the message from our president were nice, but other than that the show was bad.
Me too! I’m so happy for him. Also the absence of a douchebag that is called Ronaldo (I’m not putting Messi in the same bin, he obviously knew it wasn’t his year) shows that men don’t really pay respect to their male colleagues as well. Also, it’s great how they have the Kopa award as well – Mbappe deserved that. I was never a football fan but watching World cup this year was fun.
Messi is way worse than Ronaldo on the I’m kind of a jerk scale. Way worse. Although to be honest I personally wouldn’t call either a douchebag. Neither is that bad.
really? i thought no one was as vain as Ronaldo, just proves me being new to all the football drama 🙂
Unless there are rape allegations against Messi too, there’s no way he’s worse than Ronaldo.
YEEEEEEEES! MODRIĆ deserved this, so much!
“May have offended” is NOT an apology.
I was just about to write the very same thing. What a jerk that host is.
Yeah that was no apology in any sense of the word. He was making fun of the idea of an apology.
Dear Martin Solveig –
F**k You. Seriously.
And f**k off with barely managing to remember to congratulate her at the END of your stupid, sexist non-apology and whine about how respectful you are (especially to women!).
Guy is just disgusting. She handled it great although its disturbing to know that that was the only thing she could do. She made history and no person can diminish that or take it away.
Exactly what I wanted to write.
WTF. I watched it yesterday and was appalled!! So disrespectful and it highlights that not even how good and talented you are as a woman -even when you are recognized for it- a man will be there to put you “back in your place” why didn’t he ask Modric to twerk too?? Such bull.
Congrats to both winners.
PS: Football/Soccer is amazing.
PS2: I couldn’t love Andy Murray more.
I just walked out of my sports club over crap like this, our club facebook page had a video of a group of women athletes running in slow-motion in the rain in barely there clothing, think super tight shorts and bikini style tops with a comment that “this would be our next warm-up session, hahahaha”.
Our club is aimed at 7 years and up, oldest member of our club is 68, about half are female members and this was our public FB page so the first thing most people encounter if they are looking for info to join. I blew my top and quit that bit*h, our sport is archery, so bows, arrows and kitted out with safety protective gear. I am sick of this $hit infecting every aspect of our lives, women are treated as meat.
Good for you! And I hope you can find a suitable replacement.
Thank you Betsy, I have joined another club. The thing that kills me is that our female pr person posted that crap and laughed it off as a harmless joke. Well not when it degrades women and not when our club caters to children, it is just not on.
I am a part qualified coach, all the time I put into the sport is my own personal time, any qualifications I get is paid for by me, so I am taking myself somewhere that I no longer have to put up with that crap. (Apparently I am more worked up by this than I thought!)
Well done! If we all stood up to things like you just did, perhaps that female pr person would get a clue. How awful of her, especially when the group caters to kids. I hope that she doesn’t have children.
God, I adore Andy Murray. He may not be very good at playing the media game, but he is a tremendously good human being.
Ditto. I’m not even really a tennis person, but I know enough about it to know I love him.
(My vision is terrible – thank you, M.S. – so it’s hard for me to follow the ball. Hockey is even worse. I get dizzy trying to watch it. No thanks.)
Glad to know about her and her accomplishments. … but not because of that asshole. He should be fired from something or have his fee reduced severely for unprofessional behavior.
“Everyone who knows me knows what a good guy I am!” – screams every a**hole who has made a sexist, racist and/or homophobic comments.
Wow! What a great message to send to the girls out there that are hardworking, focused and dedicated athletes! Like, yeah, it’s cool that you won this well earned award but on a more serious not: Can you TWERK???? SHOW US!
GTFOH WITH THAT MESS! How insulting and degrading.
While the message the host sent was appalling, the message sent by her reserved but curt No and immediate turn away plus the reaction by the audience (be it the 2 seconds in the video) also sent a message . Stop with this shit and grow the f**k up.
And I really miss Andy Murray but he didn’t disappoint.
Her reaction made hope for our future blossom in my heart. She wasn’t having any of it and that was more than clear.
His apology after the fact is pathetic and underscores his misogyny and lack of self-awareness. But we see him, and others like him, and I hope that responses such as hers will increase in number and intensity until men (and self-hating women) get the message and abide by it.
Can we make Sir Andy Murray next year’s host?!
That would be hysterical for a whole host of reasons.
Congratulations on your award, Ada! Thank you for your work to inspire women and girls!
Note to bros: the world is sick of you parading insecurity and abuse as “jokes.” Go away.
She should have said, “Why dont YOU twerk for ME?” That would have shut him up real quick. But in all seriousness we as women need to stop giving dudes like this a pass. She smoothed things over because that’s what women do. And it’s why male fragility continues to a certain extent. Because we keep catering to it.
She should have walked off the stage (I am aware that this is coming from a keyboard warrior) but until women start doing this instances like this will keep happening. If she has walked off they he would have been left there looking stupid, which is what he was.
And glad to see Andy Murray calling this out.
Disrespect to female athletes gets amped up when women dare to enter men’s space like this award show. I remember the old fifa president didn’t know who Marta was and she won player of the year 5 times (this was the award they had for the best female player before deciding to give them a ballon d’or).
The whole show was a cringe fest. Martin Solweig can’t host, the actual host sucked, and you could feel how the crowd was uneasy. That particular moment was the worst. Girl works her butts off i order to get recognition in a male-dominated domain, wins the very first prize and gets asked if she knows how to twerk. All her efforts reduced to that. Disgusting