Back then the award was given to the best player in Europe, so the premises were different, but Rossi won it because of 3 matches in the '82 WC. He was never the best player in the world. Not even close. There was probably 4 players just in the '82 Brazil team (Zico, Eder, Falcao and Socrates), he scored a hattrick against, that were better than him. It was a strange B'dor in every way. Not just was he probably not the best player in Europe, but he was also suspended from football the first half of 1982 because of matchfixing (3 years, reduced to 2 years). He was brilliant in the late stages of that WC and absolute vital to Italy's title, but giving him the B'dor was a scandal.
It's also worth noting that the 2 best players the last 14 years are both convicted for tax fraud, and one has 2 rape charges on his CV (one dismissed and one he was sentenced to pay the victim). There should be some kind of rule against giving these kind of awards to convicted criminals.
We should go for better idols and rolemodels.
Titles plays too big a role in an individual award like B'dor, along with status (Messi and Ronaldo).
Was Messi the best player in 2021? No.
Was Jorghinho the 3rd best player on the planet in 2021? Not even top 20 in my book.