Zurich, at the best of times, is a straitlaced, unexciting city. Ideal for bankers, sepulchral financial whispers and the muted echo of receding footsteps down long corridors that are home to solemn paintings and rich murals decorating their walls. It was a fitting place to hold the soporific 2015 Ballon d’Or awards, Monday night, football’s glittering moment of the year when the best of the sport’s gladiators gather to crown their king and queen.

This year all it needed was a coffin to complete the overall effect of a funeral. You almost expected a dirge to rise from the orchestral pit except there wasn’t any pit and everyone including the finalists walked up and down the stage interminably, often sans reason...almost like they were stuck in a revolving door. The emcees, Irish actor James Nesbitt and British journalist Kate Abdo, did their best to ignite some excitement in an audience of over 1100 solemn people but it was like lighting a wet matchstick in a wind. Short of a spasm of suspense when the award for the Player of the Year was announced with Messi, Ronaldo and Neymar as the finalists, the excitement rate meter flat-lined for nearly two hours.

You got the feeling that everything was forced and even the players and guests had that grim “Princy’s Assembly, a public six of the best” expression on their faces. Clearly the dark clouds of the multiple investigations inside FIFA and without lay low and menacing over the organizers and even British pop star Leona Lewis received a politically correct smattering of applause.

But let’s not allow the dullness of the event or the absence of well known officials like Sepp and Michael to detract from the glory of the recognition. Not only did Messi pick up his fifth Golden Ball but surged FC Barcelona into top position with 11 such awards, three ahead of AC Milan, Juventus and Real Madrid. Conspicuous by its absence was the Premier League’s domestic representation. Gone were the days of Bobby Charlton(1966) and Kevin Keegan,(1978-79) there was not even a mention of the world’s most watched league and when the World XI for 2015 came up on stage, there was no player from England in it.

The Ballon D’Or is given to the man and woman who get the maximum votes from captains of FIFA’s national teams, their managers and a media member from each country. US midfielder Carli Lloyd also claimed her first-ever award in the women’s category and added a much welcomed sliver of scarlet color to the cluster of penguins.

Some interesting asides on the voting patterns have been released by FIFA after the curtain came down.

’Germany’s Bastian Schweinsteiger, Austria’s Christian Fuchs and Poland’s Robert Lewandowski all voted for Bayern goalkeeper Manuel Neuer first.

Luis Suarez, notably left off the FIFPro World XI, was voted first by his Barcelona teammate Messi and his countryman Diego Godin.

Wales captain Ashley Williams also voted for his countryman Gareth Bale

Cristiano Ronaldo whitewashed his ballot with Blancos teammates Karim Benzema, James Rodriguez and Bale.

’Vincent Kompany also went off script by voting for his Belgium teammate Eden Hazard first and Manchester City teammate Kevin De Bruyne second, ahead of Messi.’

Maybe next year the function could inject a modicum of fun into the mix.

On another note. if you think Chris Gayle has problems ask Indian skipper M.S.Dhoni. He faces a non-bailable arrest warrant from a small town court in an Indian state for having allegedly injured the religious feelings of the majority population by posing as a Hindu deity. Technically, when he comes back from Australia he could be indicted. It gets better (?) seeing as how the photograph that offends the petitioner, a social activist, was published in 2013 and was on the cover of a magazine. The judge has called it an advertisement for making money while displaying a profound lack of consideration for others. The point is it is not an ad and Dhoni never posed for it. It is a morphed picture from the design department of Business Today and totally an editorial exercise. In all likelihood he probably was not even asked. This is the burden put on a man leading the Indian team down under even as we go to press.