It appears Jude Bellingham could win the Golden Boy award thanks to all thanks to dedicated Swifties. In an unlikely crossover, the Real Madrid and England player is in the lead to win the prestigious award for best player in Europe under the age of 21. Notable past winners of the prize include Lionel Messi ,Kylian Mbappe, Erling Haaland, Raheem Sterling and Wayne Rooney. Alongside the 20-year-old in this year's contenders is Barcelona player Alejandro Balde, however a recent confession about noting liking a certain musician might have ruined his chances. During an interview with Mundo Deportivo, Balde said: "Do I like Taylor Swift? No, I don't like her music". At one point Badle was leading the fan vote by 13 per cent, according to Spanish journalist Martin Manin. Votes though for have Bellingham shot up and rightly so. The midfielder has had an impressive run at Real Madrid so far as he is now the third player in Los Blancos' history to score in each of his first four games for the club. This rush of votes has seemingly came from Swifties who weren't impressed with Balde's comments about the 'Anti-Hero' singer. "Hey Swifties, we can't let this Badle guy win the Golden Boy Award. Vote for Jude Bellingham here," Twitter user @notpythonn tweeted which went viral with over 6.8m views, and 30,000 likes. As a result of the Swifties taking action, the number of votes for Bellingham jumped from 30,000 to 100,000. Now, Bellingham has an overwhelming majority of 89.1 per cent after 3 million votes cast, while Balde in second place has just 8.4 per cent of votes, with Jamal Musiala in third (0.7 per cent). Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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