Thierry Henry has had enough of the noise. Two days after hosting the Ballon d'Or ceremony in London, the former Arsenal and France striker recorded a video telling critics to "relax" and insisting he was misread.
The Yamal joke that landed badly
Henry co-hosted Monday's ceremony with his CBS Sports colleague Kate Scott. The moment that drew the sharpest reaction came when he teased Barcelona teenager Lamine Yamal over winning the young player award for a third year running. "It's your third one, right? But is it the one you really wanted to win?" he asked, and the audience in the room reacted audibly.
Henry says the joke was never meant to cut. "I'm a big fan of Lamine Yamal. I wasn't checking his ego at all," he said. "That you didn't like the joke, I can understand." He added that Yamal is one of the players he would pay to watch.
Socrates, Scott and the pronunciation row
The second complaint was about how he handled Scott's pronunciation of the name of Brazilian great Socrates. Henry corrected her on the night, and some viewers felt it was disrespectful. He rejects that completely. According to him, Scott was in on it. "She did Soc on purpose, and I said Soc, so please stop inventing stories," he said, and he told critics they could ask her themselves.
Arsenal's Bukayo Saka won the Socrates Award for his humanitarian and charity work, so the name had extra weight in the room that night.
Backing Mbappe over Kane
The third strand is the one Henry finds easiest to defend. He admitted on the night that he wanted fellow Frenchman Kylian Mbappe to beat Harry Kane to the main prize. "I'm French and I was always going to back up and support my fellow countryman," he said in the video.
He was careful not to take anything away from the winner, though. Henry says he told Kane he was "a worthy winner" and that the England captain proves "work ethic is a talent." He also pointed out that he has called Kane "Sir Harry Kane" since the World Cup. His closing message to everyone online was short: "relax, relax. I love Harry Kane, I love Lamine Yamal and I didn't disrespect Kate."
Whether that settles things is another matter. Live television hosts rarely get to rerun a night, and a jokey tone that works in a studio does not always travel across a packed room and a global audience. Henry, at least, has chosen to answer the criticism directly rather than let it run.
Context: Ballon d'Or ceremony held in London on Monday, co-hosted by Thierry Henry, 49, and Kate Scott of CBS Sports. Harry Kane won the main award; Lamine Yamal took the young player award for a third year running; Bukayo Saka won the Socrates Award. Source: BBC Sport.
0 Comments