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12th Dec 2016

The first Cristiano Ronaldo Ballon d’Or conspiracy theory has arrived

He wasn't going to fool people that easily.

Tom Victor

Cristiano Ronaldo winning the 2016 Ballon d’Or is not what many people would call shock news.

We knew long before tonight’s announcement. You knew. Everyone else knew. And, even if he wasn’t at the ceremony himself, Ronaldo certainly knew.

But when did he know? That’s the real question. And someone might well have just cracked it.

BBC journalist Jamie Whitehead and his eagle eyes spotted something in the photo of Ronaldo accepting his award.

Have you spotted it yet?

No?

We’ll give you a couple of seconds.

Give up? It’s the shirt. We’ve seen it before somewhere – but where?

Over to you, Jamie.

Now, if we know one thing about Cristiano, it’s that he’s not the sort of man to wear the same shirt twice in a year.

In fact, he’s often not the sort of man to wear a shirt at all.

We all remember this. And this. And especially this. Honestly, how could anyone forget the last one?

Ronaldo wouldn’t be the first person to take part in two photoshoots on the same day and roll out the pictures one by one as if they happened separately. We’re all familiar with the Tottenham contract conspiracy.

And the Portuguese is a busy man. He doesn’t have much time in between hotel and airport openings to do the mundane things like signing contracts and winning awards. There are only so many hours in the day.

We just can’t believe Cristiano thought the Clark Kent-style glasses disguise would work on us.

Catch up with this week’s episode of Football Friday Live