The Ballon d'or merged with the World Player of the year a couple of years ago,
Also, im not sure that there is overhyped media speculation in this country compared to other European countries, I was in Spain during some of the World Cup, and as the tournament progressed, even the most broadsheets of broadsheets began to focus on the football, and nowadays, even a draw is considered a poor result, but then again, it is here and this asks the question of why can Spain pull it off and we can't? The answer is simply that they have better players than us, no matter how much they are paid, the quality is still there. Personally, the problem lies with the big PL clubs, who are more likely to look overseas for their new young star instead of nurturing homegrown players through into their starting XIs.
For example, in the recent Champions League final, 7 of Barca's starting XI were Spanish, it would have been 8 had Puyol been fit enough to start, compared to Man Utd, who had 3 English (4 including Giggs) in theirs, and not many, i think only Giggs, started their career at Man United, whereas Iniesta, Xavi, Busquets and Messi have been playing in the same team for most of their lives, in particular Iniesta and Xavi, who have supposedly been in the same team since they were 8.
Sorry it's a bit long, I started writing and didn't stop