Thierry Henry defends Ballon d’Or jokes about Yamal and Kate Scott

Thierry Henry has answered the criticism of his Ballon d’Or hosting, insisting that the jokes which irritated some viewers were never meant to belittle Lamine Yamal or his co-presenter Kate Scott.

The former Arsenal and France striker fronted Monday’s ceremony in London alongside Scott, his CBS Sports colleague. His approach divided fans online while Harry Kane collected the men’s award.

Henry’s reply, reported by The Independent, began by saying that people were getting worked up over nothing.

Henry says the Yamal joke was misread

Complaints centred on three moments. Henry corrected Scott’s pronunciation of Sócrates, the Brazilian great whose name is on one of the awards.

He also teased Yamal about collecting the young player prize for a third year running while being in the hunt for the main trophy. And he was open about wanting his compatriot Kylian Mbappé to beat Kane.

On Yamal, Henry rejected the idea that he was trying to deflate the teenager. In his response, he said:

First of all, Lamine Yamal, I wasn’t checking his ego at all, I just thought as the third time he’s winning that trophy, I asked him if that was the one he really wanted, and I brought out a laugh from people

Henry added that he would pay to watch Yamal play, and that he was simply wondering aloud whether the Kopa Trophy was the prize the winger most wanted. He accepted that some people did not enjoy the gag.

Yamal takes defeat in his stride

Yamal finished third in the overall voting, behind Kane and runner-up Mbappé. The 19-year-old still won the Kopa Trophy, ahead of a Spain and Barcelona team-mate.

On Tuesday night, according to ESPN, he posted a message of his own on social media. Yamal wrote:

No rush, just excitement and the calm assurance that one day my time will come.

He went on to say his focus was back on helping Barcelona win again. They lead LaLiga after taking maximum points from their first eight games, in which Yamal has eight goals and six assists.

Nothing in that message reads like a player nursing a grievance. In my view, the joke was clumsy mainly because of its timing, landing just before a winger who contributed 25 goals and 20 assists over 57 games lost out on the biggest prize.

Kate Scott was in on it, says Henry

The second complaint was that Henry had been disrespectful to Scott over the Sócrates moment. He rejected that, saying Scott shortened the name on purpose and that he simply played along.

Henry said:

Now let’s move on to Kate, she was in on the joke, and you can ask Kate, by the way, she did it on purpose, to say Soc

He told critics he would never disrespect her, and that she could confirm as much herself.

Why he wanted Mbappé to beat Kane

The third strand was Henry’s honesty about hoping Mbappé would win. He said Kane had called him out over it after Bayern Munich played Arsenal.

His answer was that, as a Frenchman, he was always going to back a fellow countryman. He says he also told Kane he was a deserving winner, and has called him Sir Harry Kane since the World Cup.

He closed his reply with this message:

So please, people out there, relax, relax, I love Harry Kane, I love Lamine Yamal, and I didn’t disrespect Kate, she was on the joke with me, once again, have a good night.

Kane’s win ended a 25-year wait for an English winner, since Michael Owen. In his speech, he thanked his England team-mates and Tottenham, where he spent his youth years from the age of 11.

The vote itself was not without debate. Croatian journalist Zdravko Reic, one of the 100 jurors, admitted he made a mistake by placing Kane only sixth on his ballot.

Henry’s explanation will not convince everyone, but it is hard to read his message as anything other than affectionate towards all three of them.