Thierry Henry has won many individual awards over the years, as well as plenty of silverware at both club and international level. The French supremo is regarded by many as the greatest player to ever appear in the Premier League. He was able to mix style, grace, flair and elegance with brilliant stats (in terms of goals and assists) in a way that few, if any, others have.
He was a world-class footballer who won the Premier League Golden Boot a record four times, whilst he also won league titles in France, England and Spain, plus the Champions League and – with France – the World Cup and European Championship. But he did it in style and made it look not just easy, but beautiful as well. He has it all… or almost all.
Perhaps the one thing missing from the Frenchman’s CV is the Ballon d’Or. Probably the most prestigious award in the game for an individual, this is obviously very hard to win. Only one player is crowned the best each year and for much of the 21st century, the Ballon d’Or has been dominated by two men. Lionel Messi has eight wins and Cristiano Ronaldo five, but most of Henry’s peak years came before that incredible duo really got a stranglehold on the Ballon d’Or.
The ex-Arsenal striker did come very close to winning the award in 2003 when he came second. But should he have won? The Ballon d’Or is, like many awards, subjective. In other words, people, in this case an expert panel of sports journalists, vote on who they think deserves to win. It is a matter of opinion, so there will always, or at least often, be debate and disagreement about who wins. However, in 2003, many felt that Thierry Henry was robbed and that he should have won. Let’s take a closer look at the Ballon d’Or that year and see what went on.
2003 Ballon d’Or Results
On the 22nd of December 2003, Pavel Nedved was crowned the Ballon d’Or winner. The Juventus midfielder became the second Czech footballer to win the award, after Josef Masopust in 1962 after he helped his nation to that year’s World Cup final. Nedved had not been expected to scoop the honour, with Henry and Paolo Maldini deemed more likely winners by most observers.
However, as we can see, in the end the Czech player won quite easily:
Rank | Player | Points | Club |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Pavel Nedved | 190 | Juventus |
2 | Thierry Henry | 128 | Arsenal |
3 | Paolo Maldini | 123 | Milan |
4 | Andriy Shevchenko | 67 | Milan |
5 | Zinedine Zidane | 64 | Real Madrid |
As the voting above shows, the top three were well clear of the rest, but Nedved was ultimately the comfortable winner, scoring around 50% more points than the two men many felt were due to battle it out for the Ballon d’Or.
How the Voting Worked

Much has changed about this honour over the years, including its name, what dates the prize covers, eligibility criteria, who votes, and how that ballot takes place. In 2003, 52 voting experts chose from a pre-selected long-list of 50 footballers. They awarded five points to their top-ranked footballer, four for second and so on, down to one point for the player they thought was the fifth-best.
More than half the 27 judges made Nedved their top pick and those 135 points alone would have been enough for him to win. However, he collected an assortment of other top-fives, with only seven judges not including them among their point-scorers. Henry got 37 unique votes, with just eight of those being first, nine second and 14 third (plus four votes worth two points each and a further two points from judges who ranked him fifth overall).
Another key thing to consider about the 2003 award is the dates it was based on. Whilst it is now based on a whole football season (so, for example, the 2024 award is based on performances between August 2023 and the end of July 2024), back then it was based on a calendar year. As such, it included the early part of 2003, which was part of the 2002/03 campaign, plus the summer, then the start of the following season, 2003/04. With the short-list announced on the 11th of November in 2003, prior to an announcement in late December, performances through almost all of the calendar year 2003 were taken into account.
Should Henry Have Won?

We are strongly inclined to believe that yes, Henry would have been a deserving winner of the 2003 Ballon d’Or. 20 years on from the award, the magnanimous Frenchman said, “You can’t debate opinions”, adding that journalists “vote whatever they want” and also that such debate was not uncommon and “not only my year, every year, you look at the first three, and you’re like, really?”. Ultimately Henry has to accept the vote and he has, adding, “It is what it is. You can’t debate opinions.”
However, we disagree and yes we can indeed debate and contest opinions! Henry was simply superb during the period in question. 2003/04 was Arsenal’s Invincible campaign and between August 2003 and late November, after the short-list was announced, the Gunners were brilliant. They won 10 and drew three of their opening 13 games. They also progressed in the League Cup and by the 10th of December had won their Champions League group.
Henry was central to that success and by the end of the campaign he won the Premier League Golden Boot and was the Player of the Season. He was almost as good in 2002/03, when he netted 24 league goals and 32 in all competitions. Nedved was a different player and he was more of a chance maker than taker but in terms of individual performances, stats and brilliance, there seems little doubt that Henry was better.
Ultimately we feel that many judges put too much emphasis on the Champions League in a year where there was no major international tournament. Nedved helped his side to the final in May 2003, where Juve lost 0-0 to Milan – for whom Maldini was the captain. For much of the calendar year of 2003, Arsenal were superb but they exited the Champions League at the second group phase. Moreover, they didn’t win any silverware, whereas Juve won Serie A.
Additionally, dare we say it, perhaps there was some anti-English and/or anti-Premier League sentiment at the time. The PL was really beginning to generate huge amounts of cash at this time and not all European fans liked that. Ultimately though, whatever the reason, Nedved won and Henry was… robbed!