It has long been rumoured that the Ballon d'Or is fixed, with the winner of the award decided long before the actual ceremony itself takes place - and the leaked front cover of Tuesday's edition of France Football will only add more credence to all the conspiracy theorists out there.
Plus aucun doute ? pic.twitter.com/pBYY0Wl5sz
While the award ceremony wasn't until Monday evening - and as we all know, Cristiano Ronaldo proved the winner -the leakedcover showed that very same mangleefully clutching the trophy, while a quote from Antoine Griezmann exclaims:
''I was standing behind two monsters.''
The implication here of course is that Griezmann - who, in fairness, was always seen as a massive outsider to actually win the prize -never really stood a chance.
Well, IF the whole thing is rigged, then he wasn't the only one to never have had a chance of winning; perhaps it was always 'destined' that Ronaldo would prove victorious, long before the champagne has even been given a chance to pop in earnest.