Ballon d’Or ceremony highlights French journalist jailed in Algeria

The Ballon d’Or ceremony has brought international attention to Christophe Gleizes, a French sports journalist imprisoned in Algeria on terrorism-related charges after travelling to the politically sensitive Kabylie region. His supporters say he was pursuing a football story, not engaging in political activity.

According to Reporters Without Borders, organisers used the ceremony to express solidarity with Gleizes and support calls for his release. The intervention brought a press freedom campaign onto a stage normally devoted to recognising football’s leading players, connecting his case with the sport he covered.

A contributor to the French magazines So Foot and Society, Gleizes travelled to Algeria in May 2024 to report on JS Kabylie, the club based in Tizi Ouzou. He was arrested that month and placed under judicial supervision before receiving a seven-year prison sentence in June 2025, according to accounts of the proceedings.

The convictions concerned glorifying terrorism and possessing publications for propaganda purposes harmful to national interests, Reporters Without Borders said. An appeals court upheld the sentence in December 2025. The organisation rejects the prosecution’s characterisation of his activities and maintains that he was carrying out legitimate journalistic work.

At the centre of the case were contacts with a football official linked to the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie, known as MAK. Algeria designated the movement a terrorist organisation in 2021. Reporting by Le Monde described earlier interviews with a club official whose overlapping sporting and political roles subsequently became central to the accusations.

Gleizes’s family has said his interest in those contacts was football rather than separatist politics. His reporting also concerned the death of Cameroonian footballer Albert Ebossé, who played for JS Kabylie and died in 2014. Those accounts place his journey within a longer-running interest in African football and the stories surrounding its clubs.

The distinction between interviewing a source and endorsing that source’s views is central to the objections raised by his defenders. The Associated Press reported after the original verdict that rights groups viewed the prosecution as criminalising routine reporting. At that stage, it said Algerian officials had not commented publicly on the case.

The campaign for Gleizes has extended beyond newsrooms, drawing support from public figures and the sporting community. Reporters Without Borders has used prominent sporting occasions to publicise his imprisonment. The Ballon d’Or tribute gave that effort another platform, bringing his absence to the attention of an audience gathered to celebrate football.

For his family and colleagues, the objective remains his release and return to work. Reporters Without Borders says it will continue its public campaign, framing the case as a defence of the right to report. The ceremony’s intervention adds visibility to that effort, but does not itself change his legal position.