Harry Kane wins Ballon d'Or by 28 points over Kylian Mbappé in tightest vote since 2019

Narrow finish in the voting

L'Équipe and France Football published the full Ballon d'Or voting totals on Friday, 30 October, and they show Harry Kane ahead of Kylian Mbappé by 28 points. Kane collected 1,055 points from the 100 journalists who vote, while Mbappé finished on 1,027. Kane was the odds-on favourite before the vote, and Mbappé had made a late surge, but the totals were not released on the night of the award. One Portuguese report gave the gap as 18 points, a figure the published totals do not match. The margin is the tightest winning margin since 2019, when Lionel Messi beat Virgil van Dijk by 686 points to 679. In 2024 Rodri won by 41 points over Vinicius, a gap wider than Kane's.

Top ten and the chasing pack

Lamine Yamal finished third on 881 points, 174 behind Kane, and Rodri was fourth with 726. Lionel Messi took fifth on 612, ahead of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia on 541, Ousmane Dembélé on 418, Erling Haaland on 378, Michael Olise on 296 and Fabián Ruiz on 201. Four Portuguese players placed in the vote, with Vitinha 14th on 59 points, João Neves 19th, Nuno Mendes 23rd and Bruno Fernandes 27th. The top five totals are charted below, and they show a gap of 28 points between the first two and a much wider one down to Yamal.

Harry Kane1,055

Kylian Mbappé1,027

Lamine Yamal881

Rodri726

Lionel Messi612

Harry Kane

1055 points

Kylian Mbappé

1027 points

Lamine Yamal

881 points

Rodri

726 points

Lionel Messi

612 points

Data from the article text

First-place votes and Mbappé's finish

Mbappé's second place is his best finish in the voting, after a third place in 2023. Per L'Équipe, three of the voting journalists did not name him anywhere in their top ten. Kane received the maximum score from 40 voters, against 23 for Mbappé, while Yamal was ranked first by 13 voters and Rodri by 10. LaVanguardia noted that the split of the Spanish vote between Yamal and Rodri weighed on Yamal's total, since Rodri won 726 points and ten first-place votes.

Harry Kane40

Kylian Mbappé23

Lamine Yamal13

Rodri10

Harry Kane

40 votes

Kylian Mbappé

23 votes

Lamine Yamal

13 votes

Rodri

10 votes

Data from the article text

Kane's season, the ceremony and the women's ranking

Kane's season with Bayern Munich included 61 goals in 51 games in all competitions, 36 of them in the Bundesliga, and he won the Golden Boot. Bayern also won the Bundesliga, the DFB-Pokal and the Supercup that season. Earlier in 2026, England finished third at the World Cup after losing to Argentina in the semi-finals and beating France for bronze. The award was presented at the London Palladium on Monday, 26 October, and France Football director Vincent Garcia said none of the candidates knew, when they travelled to London, whether they had won. Kane became the first Englishman to win since Michael Owen and the first Bayern player to win since Rummenigge in 1981. In the women's ranking, Alexia Putellas beat Ewa Pajor by 86 points in a vote decided by 50 journalists, and Putellas has since joined London City Lionesses.