Team success, the ‘Bundesliga tax’ and the World Cup: Three takeaways from the 2026 Ballon d’Or | Ballon d’Or

It was an awards show that, as Michael Owen admitted, could have been a phone call – as it was in 2001 when he won. A quarter-century on, a ballroom full of footballers, power brokers, a gravity-defying dancer and a handful of heckling rabble-rousers plodded through a three-hour slog of a ceremony. Aside from reminding viewers at home just how precious our free time is, what can we glean…