A stolen car: that is reportedly how Daniel Riolo described Mbappé's Ballon d'Or campaign

Two of France's most audible football voices have reportedly taken aim at the media campaign behind Kylian Mbappé's Ballon d'Or candidacy, and neither chose a gentle image to do it with.

Daniel Riolo is reported to have compared the campaign to a stolen car. Jerome Rothen, according to the same reporting, went further still: a Mbappé win would be a joke, and would leave the forward isolated.

The force of the Riolo line is in the metaphor itself. A stolen car is not a car you did not earn. It is a car you took. That is a heavier charge than the usual complaint about a player's press operation being a little too well organised, and it is being made by people who talk about French football for a living, about the player French football has built its last decade around.

What makes this worth noting at the Bernabéu is the direction of travel. The criticism is not coming from a rival camp or from a club with an interest in the outcome. It is coming from home, aimed at a campaign rather than at a season of performances, and the distinction between the two is exactly the ground the Ballon d'Or argument is always fought on.

What the reporting does not give is a setting. There is no indication of where or in what programme the remarks were made, which matters when the words are this pointed. There is also no response on record from Mbappé or from anyone around him. Silence is a tactic too, and a frequently effective one.

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Real Madrid host Villarreal CF on Saturday, 10 October 2026 at 21:00 in LALIGA EA SPORTS, Jornada 8, at the Bernabéu. The last five read W 2-1 Internazionale, W 2-1 Internazionale, W 4-1 Rayo Vallecano, W 3-2 Elche CF and L 1-2 Atlético de Madrid.