Harry Kane won the 2026 Ballon d’Or at the London Palladium on Monday night, finishing ahead of Lamine Yamal and Kylian Mbappé in the vote for the best player in world football. The Bayern Munich and England striker scored 73 goals for club and country in 2025-26, and he becomes the first English winner of the award since Michael Owen in 2001.
A 73-Goal Season Makes Kane the Ballon d’Or Winner
The case for Kane started and ended with the numbers. He scored 61 goals in 51 appearances for Bayern Munich: 36 in the Bundesliga, 14 in the Champions League, 10 in the DFB-Pokal and one in the Franz Beckenbauer Supercup, a goal every 66 minutes across the season. Add his England goals and the total climbs to 73, a single-season haul that passes Cristiano Ronaldo’s personal best of 69 and sits behind only the 82 Lionel Messi scored in 2011-12.
The goals came with silverware this time. Bayern won the Bundesliga and the DFB-Pokal, lifted the Supercup, and reached the Champions League semi-finals before losing to eventual champions Paris Saint-Germain. Kane also collected the European Golden Shoe, and on Monday night he added the Gerd Müller Trophy as the season’s top scorer before the main award followed. For a player who spent a decade being told the trophies would never come, the 2025-26 season answered every version of that argument.
“Wow, wow, wow. I’m almost speechless. Thank you to France Football for putting on this amazing event. Being in London made this extra special and felt like a good omen for me. Thank you to everyone who voted for me. It was real tough this year with the world-class players.”
Kane also thanked the Bayern teammates in the room with him and sent a message to head coach Vincent Kompany, who missed the ceremony while recovering in hospital.
World Cup Run Caps the Case in Kane’s Home City
The club season alone might have been enough, but the summer sealed it. Kane scored six times at the 2026 World Cup as England finished third, their best result at the tournament since 1966, and he passed Gary Lineker as England’s record World Cup scorer along the way. His 12 international goals in the judging period took his England total to 91, with the century now in sight.
The setting sharpened the story. The 70th Ballon d’Or ceremony left Paris for London in tribute to Stanley Matthews, the first winner in 1956, and Kane was born in the capital. Ronaldo Nazário presented the men’s award, and Michael Owen, the last English winner, was in the building to present the women’s trophy. At 33, Kane also becomes Bayern Munich’s first winner since Karl-Heinz Rummenigge in 1981 and only the fifth Englishman ever to take the prize, after Matthews, Bobby Charlton, Kevin Keegan and Owen.
Putellas Wins Her Third Women’s Ballon d’Or
Alexia Putellas won the Ballon d’Or Féminin for the third time, adding 2026 to her wins in 2021 and 2022 and ending Aitana Bonmatí’s run of three straight titles. Putellas captained Barcelona through a quadruple season, winning Liga F, the Copa de la Reina, the Supercopa de España and the UEFA Women’s Champions League, and Barcelona were also named women’s club of the year. She did it three years after tearing her ACL on the eve of Euro 2022, a comeback that framed the whole night for the women’s game.
Putellas has since taken her game to England with London City Lionesses in the Women’s Super League, which made a London ceremony a fitting place for her return to the top. The women’s striker of the year award went to Mexico’s Charlyn Corral, who scored 55 goals for Pachuca and her country. Yamal and Mbappé completed the men’s podium behind Kane, with Ousmane Dembélé, Erling Haaland, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Lionel Messi, Michael Olise, Rodri and Fabián Ruiz rounding out the top ten.
Spain Runs the Rest of the Night
Spanish football owned the supporting awards. Lamine Yamal took the men’s young talent award for a third straight year and used his speech to argue his Barcelona teammate Pau Cubarsí deserved it more. Vicky López won the women’s young talent award for the second straight year, Unai Simón and Cata Coll took the goalkeeper awards, and Luis de la Fuente was named men’s coach of the year after leading Spain to the World Cup. Barcelona’s Pere Romeu won the women’s coaching award, Paris Saint-Germain took men’s club of the year for a second straight season, and Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka received the Sócrates Award for his charity work with BigShoe, presented by Burna Boy.
The Ballon d’Or has a habit of rewarding a storyline, and this year the storyline and the spreadsheet pointed the same way. Yamal has a World Cup win and a decade of chances ahead of him, and Mbappé finished as the World Cup’s top scorer and its all-time leading scorer. Kane simply outscored everyone on the planet across the season the award measures, and on a delayed, chaotic, very London night, that was enough. More from the iimiTV sports desk in our Sports coverage.
