Ballon d'Or ceremony dedicates award night to French journalist jailed in Algeria

Presenters Kate Scott and Thierry Henry dedicated Monday's Ballon d'Or ceremony in London to Christophe Gleizes, a French sports journalist serving a seven-year prison sentence in Algeria.

A large screen behind the presenters displayed a counter showing Gleizes had been imprisoned for one year, three months and 27 days, alongside the hashtag #FreeGleizes.

Gleizes, 37, was arrested after travelling to Algeria in May 2024 to report on Jeunesse Sportive de Kabylie, a football club based in Tizi Ouzou, in the Kabylie region. Algerian authorities accused him of possessing publications harmful to national security and of links to the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie, which Algeria designated a terrorist organisation in 2021.

Reporters Without Borders, which has campaigned for his release, says his contacts with a club official associated with that movement took place in a journalistic context, and that some predated the organisation's outlawing. At his appeal hearing last December, Gleizes acknowledged he should have applied for a journalist visa rather than entering Algeria on a tourist visa, and told the court: "I beg your mercy so that I can be reunited with my family."

Gleizes contributes to French magazines So Foot and Society. The Ballon d'Or is organised by France Football magazine in partnership with UEFA. Algerian authorities had not commented on the ceremony's tribute at the time of the broadcast.

Reporters Without Borders has announced a solidarity football match for 11 November — Gleizes's 500th day in detention — with former France internationals Robert Pirès and Vikash Dhorasoo and Paris Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire among those confirmed to participate.