Sepp Blatter and Cristiano Ronaldo are enemies no more.
According to reports, Blatter made amends with the superstar hours before Ronaldo picked up his second Ballon d'Or.
"This is no longer an issue, neither for us nor for football,'' the Ballon d'Or winner said prior to the ceremony, according to ESPN. "We talked over the telephone and everything was cleared."
Blatter spurred controversy when he declared publicly that he preferred Lionel Messi to Ronaldo, even going so far as calling Messi the kind of person that would make a father proud while Ronaldo was a "commander" and too worried about his hair product expenses.
Ronaldo responded fiercely via Twitter by not only promising not to join the Ballon d'Or ceremony, but also indirectly claiming that the professed favoritism was the main reason that he had lost the Ballon d'Or during the last five years.
Blatter tried to change his stance to avoid the controversy — as he often does in these kinds of situations that he puts himself into — but there was never any mention of reconciliation.
Ronaldo finished first in the Ballon d'Or voting after a terrific finish to the calendar year. He scored a total of 69 goals in 59 matches and capped his year with a four-goal effort against Sweden in the World Cup playoffs. He also scored nine goals in the Champions League group stage, beating Messi's previous record. Despite not winning a single team trophy in 2013, Ronaldo's goal-scoring prowess and terrific finish to the year proved to much to overlook for voters.
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