Things took an ugly turn for the French magazine after a poll favoring Messi to claim the award 'disappeared' from the publication's website.

All awards ceremonies this year have been quite controversial, and a gesture by France Football will add more fuel to that fire.

The French magazine, known for handing out every year the coveted Ballon D'Or, had placed a poll on their website where fans could vote for their favorite footballer of the year. After more than 700,000 fans had voted, the poll was taken down.

What really bothered football fans, especially those that support Barcelona, was that Lionel Messi was leading that poll by a landslide. Messi was leading with a 48% vote, followed by Mohamed Salah with 31% of the votes. Cristiano Ronaldo completed the podium with a distant 8%.

"Results from France Football's poll (after 24 hours)"

But why did the French outlet decide to take the poll down from their website? A short press release by the magazine tried to explain their reasons to do so.

"We were forced to take down the poll after we detected the creation of thousands of malware accounts that were trying to affect the results of the poll," the press release states.

While fans were not satisfied by this explanation, the document added that this poll wouldn't have had an effect in the final results, since the award is given after a panel of experts cast their vote.

"The Ballon D'Or, as always, is granted by a jury of independent and specialized journalists," the document concluded.

Despite his antics on the pitch, Lionel Messi doesn't seem to be one of the top contenders for the award due to his failure to reach the defining stages of the FIFA World Cup and the UEFA Champions League. Only time will tell if the panel of experts summoned by France Football agree with the thousands of fans that were able to cast their votes in this poll.