The likes of Wayne Rooney (Golden Boy winner in 2004), Lionel Messi (2005) and Sergio Aguero (2007) serve as potent examples of prodigious young talents that blossomed into senior stars. The similarity in all of them, is that all 3 won the prestigious Golden Boy award.
The award makes its return this year and the likes of Jude Bellingham, Jamal Musiala and Barcelona’s Alejandro Balde are the front runners to win this time around.
However, this year’s voting has been ridden with conspiracy and the influence of a certain pop star and her stans on the internet that have turned the tides in a nominees favor completely. The pop star is Taylor Swift .
It all began this past week when an interview of Balde, that he gave last year in May, resurfaced again causing havoc.
In an exclusive chat with Mundo Deportivo, Balde was asked whether he is a fan of Taylor swift’s music and the Spanish international replied by saying he doesn’t enjoy the American pop star’s music.
While this may have seemed like an answer that wouldn’t affect Taylor or Alejandro as both of them are enjoying success in their own fields, this answer may just be the reason Balde misses out on the prestigious trophy (Golden Boy).
A certain Madrid fan used this revelation about Balde’s music taste to their advantage in the smartest way possible.
An account by the name of @notpythonn on Twitter used Balde’s statement and called out all the “swifties” to act against Balde and instead vote for Bellingham.
Taylor swift fans all across the internet really joined forces to showcase their power and shifted the pendulum in Bellingham’s favor now making him favorite to win the award.
Before the tweet by the Madrid fan, Balde was leading the votes receiving 43% of the votes, 13% more compared to Bellingham, However, after the tweet, Bellingham went from 30 to 89% and Balde from 43 to 8%.
Many fans even started voting for Bellingham out of spite, despite not knowing the player or watching football, this goes to show the power of the ‘swifties’ and the major butterfly effect that has transpired from that one tweet.
Barcelona fans were aware of the situation and wanted to act quickly as winning the award for a third consecutive year would be a great achievement for the club as Pedri and Gavi won the award for the two previous years.
Barca fans started tweeting out that Balde was a fan of the South Korean Pop group, BTS who are known to have very loyal fans and are called “army”. This led to BTS fans voting heavily for the left back to shift the pendulum back in his favor at least balance it.
