---
title: "Ronaldo's 2008 voted greatest Ballon d'Or of all time"
url: https://sportshorts.net/story/ronaldo-2008-voted-greatest-ballon-dor-of-all-time
published: 2026-10-29T03:24:11Z
updated: 2026-10-29T03:24:11Z
summary: "Cristiano Ronaldo's 2008 Ballon d'Or was voted the greatest edition in the award's 70-year history, ahead of Messi's 2012, in a one-euro fan poll."
author: "SportShorts Desk"
categories: ["Football"]
tags: ["Ballon d'Or", "Cristiano Ronaldo", "Lionel Messi", "Manchester United", "Premier League"]
lang: en
---

# Ronaldo's 2008 voted greatest Ballon d'Or of all time

*France Football's 70th-anniversary B.O.A.T. poll crowned the Manchester United edition — decided by one-euro fan votes, not journalists.*

Cristiano Ronaldo's 2008 Ballon d'Or was voted the greatest edition in the award's 70-year history on Wednesday, as France Football announced the result of its B.O.A.T. — "Ballon d'Or of All Time" — a fan poll revealed two days after [Harry Kane lifted the 2026 trophy](/story/kane-ballon-dor-2026-bayern-munich-first-since-1981).

The 2008 trophy was the first of Ronaldo's five, won as a Manchester United winger after a 42-goal season that delivered the Premier League and Champions League — making him the club's first winner since George Best 40 years earlier.

Lionel Messi's 2012 award — the 91-goal calendar year — finished second, with Ronaldo's 2017 edition third and Messi's 2023 fourth. The two rivals filled the top 12 places of the final ranking; Ronaldo Nazário's 2002 was the first edition by anyone else, in 13th.

Only multiple winners were eligible — a ten-man list also featuring Platini, Cruyff, Beckenbauer and Van Basten — and voters picked a single edition rather than a career.

The result is already disputed. Ballots were cast on the Ballon d'Or website at €1 per vote with no cap, and only around 5,000 fans took part — 93% of them voting more than once, according to Ouest-France. France Football stresses the B.O.A.T. is not an official trophy but a fan exercise, unlike the annual award decided by journalists or the jury-voted Super Ballon d'Or won by Alfredo Di Stéfano in 1989.

*Sources: Ballon d'Or, MARCA, Ouest-France, Eurosport.*

*Photo: [Gordon Flood](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ronaldo_free_kick.jpg) via Wikimedia Commons, [CC BY 2.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0).*