Ballon d'Or: Football Winners, Rankings and Africa's Story

The Ballon d'Or is the award given each year to the best player in world football, and Harry Kane won the 2026 edition, the 70th, at the London Palladium. Kylian Mbappé finished second and Lamine Yamal third, while Alexia Putellas won the women's award the same night. Through 2026, George Weah of Liberia, the 1995 winner, is still the only player from an African nation to lift the men's trophy. South African readers who call the game soccer are following the same golden ball as everyone else, because there is one award for the whole world, with one top 30 ranking and one list of winners running back to Stanley Matthews of Blackpool in 1956.

Mention the Ballon d'Or in a Lagos viewing centre and the talk moves from who won to who should have won before the replay has finished, which is half the fun. The guide that follows gives the full list of winners by year, club, country and continent, explains how to read the points behind the top 30, and sets the award beside the CAF and FIFA prizes that fans often fold into it. It also follows the African names who came close, from Sadio Mané's second place in 2022 to Mohamed Salah's fourth in 2025, with an eye on what each ranking means for Super Eagles, Black Stars, Harambee Stars, Bafana Bafana and Cranes players.

Who Won the 2026 Ballon d'Or?

Harry Kane of England won the men's Ballon d'Or in 2026, the 70th edition of the award, at a ceremony held at the London Palladium. Kylian Mbappé finished second and Lamine Yamal third, and Alexia Putellas of Spain won the women's Ballon d'Or on the same stage. Kane became the first Englishman to win since Michael Owen in 2001. His award gave Premier League fans across Africa another English winner to discuss.

The podium records how the jury judged the players for the season covered by the 2026 award. For fans following from Accra or Kampala, the points behind each place help explain the result, while the voting criteria show how individual performances, team achievements and fair play contribute to a player's case.

For African players, each place in the ranking is a step towards the podium, and the record shows what takes a player up the next steps. Mané reached second in 2022 and Mohamed Salah of Egypt was fourth in 2025, both after seasons that ended with major honours or finals. That is the measurement to watch for any African name on the next shortlist.

Ballon d'Or Winners by Year: The Full List From 1956

Every men's Ballon d'Or winner from Stanley Matthews of Blackpool in 1956 to Harry Kane in 2026 is in the table below, a run of 70 editions with no award in 2020. The table runs to the 2026 edition. You can sort it by year, club, country or continent, and the Africa column marks the two names with an African story: George Weah, who played for Liberia, and Eusébio, who was born in Mozambique and played for Portugal.

Read down the club column and the shape of European football appears in front of you. Real Madrid and Barcelona have supplied the most winners, with AC Milan and Juventus next. Read down the continent column instead, and South America only appears after the 1995 rule change, starting with Ronaldo of Brazil in 1997. That is the eligibility story told through a spreadsheet, and it explains why great players from outside Europe who peaked before 1995 are missing from the list of Ballon d'Or winners.

The women's Ballon d'Or, the Ballon d'Or Féminin, was first awarded in 2018, when Ada Hegerberg of Norway won it while playing for Lyon. Megan Rapinoe of the United States won in 2019, there was no award in 2020, and Alexia Putellas of Spain won in 2021 and 2022. Her compatriot Aitana Bonmatí then won from 2023 to 2025, and Putellas took a third title in 2026. The two Spaniards therefore share the record for the women's award with three wins each through 2026, and both built their careers at Barcelona.

Ballon d'Or Rankings: How to Read the Top 30

The Ballon d'Or ranking is published in full on the night of the ceremony, when the organisers release every place from first to 30th, and the ranking module at the top shows the latest top 30 with each player's points. Before the ceremony, the same 30 names exist only as a shortlist of nominees in no particular order. If you see a numbered Ballon d'Or ranking circulating weeks before the ceremony, treat it as somebody's prediction rather than a result, because the votes are only counted and revealed on the night itself.

Places tell you who beat whom, but points tell you by how much. In 2025, Ousmane Dembélé won with 1,380 points and Lamine Yamal finished second on 1,059, a margin that shows a clear winner rather than a coin toss. Reading the ranking by places alone is like judging a journey across Lagos by the number of bus stops rather than the traffic between them. A player in 12th might sit closer to fifth than fifth sits to first, and the points column is where that becomes visible.

The strip showing where Africans finished sits beside the main ranking because that is what readers in Lagos, Accra, Nairobi, Johannesburg and Kampala look for first. In 2025 that strip would have opened with Mohamed Salah in fourth place.

Who Has Won the Most Ballon d'Ors? Messi, Ronaldo and the GOAT Debate

Lionel Messi has won the most men's Ballon d'Ors, with eight titles: 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2019, 2021 and 2023. Cristiano Ronaldo is second on the list with five, won in 2008, 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2017. Behind them, Johan Cruyff, Michel Platini and Marco van Basten have three wins each, and nobody else has more than two. Messi alone has won more Ballon d'Ors than Cruyff and Platini put together, which still looks strange when you write it down.

The GOAT debate, Messi against Ronaldo, has filled viewing centres in Lagos and fan pages in Nairobi for close to two decades, and the Ballon d'Or count is the first number each side reaches for. In my opinion, it settles less than Messi fans would like and more than Ronaldo fans would admit, because five wins in an era that also contained Messi is its own kind of record. The argument has the rhythm of the jollof debate between Nigeria and Ghana: everybody has a winner, and nobody leaves the table early.

Streaks are the other way to read the list. Messi won four in a row from 2009 to 2012, the longest run in the history of the award, and Platini's consecutive wins for Juventus from 1983 to 1985 were the previous best. Bonmatí matched that run of three in the women's award from 2023 to 2025. If you are using the sortable table, sort by winner and the streaks stand out in a way that a plain list by year tends to hide.

Has an African Player Ever Won the Ballon d'Or?

Yes, and only once: George Weah of Liberia won the Ballon d'Or in 1995 while playing for AC Milan, and through 2026 he is still the only player from an African nation to win the men's award. It came in the first year that non-Europeans at European clubs were allowed to win, so Weah walked through the door on the very day it opened. Fans in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Uganda still bring his name up whenever an African makes the shortlist, the way a family brings up the first relative who went to university.

A second name in the table carries an African story. Eusébio, who won in 1965 with Benfica, was born in what is now Mozambique and played his international football for Portugal, so the continent can claim a share of his award even though the country column says Portugal. Closer to the present, Sadio Mané finished second in 2022 behind Karim Benzema, the nearest a player from an African nation has come since Weah. That season Mané also won the Africa Cup of Nations with Senegal, which tells you what kind of year it takes.

The other near misses are worth knowing by year. Abedi Pele, the Ghana and Marseille playmaker, is credited with third place in 1991, a finish Ghanaian fans treat as the nearest a Black Star has come. Victor Osimhen finished eighth in 2023 after a title winning season with Napoli, and Mohamed Salah was fourth in 2025. For Super Eagles fans, Osimhen's eighth place showed that a Nigerian striker can break into the top ten, and what would carry one higher is a season in which those goals also land a Champions League or an Africa Cup of Nations.

What the Ballon d'Or Means From Lagos to Kampala

Nigerian interest in the award has strong Super Eagles connections. Ademola Lookman won CAF African Player of the Year in 2024, and Osimhen's eighth place in 2023 gave Nigerian fans a top ten finish to talk about. The question Nigerians ask of every shortlist is the one worth asking of every big match: which Super Eagles players are in it, and what would it take for one of them to stand on that stage?

Ghana's story with the award runs through Abedi Pele, and players such as Mohammed Kudus and Thomas Partey, whose Premier League years gave Black Stars fans every reason to follow English football closely, keep that interest alive. Ghanaian readers often call the CAF award the African Ballon d'Or, which is a fair nickname as long as you remember they are separate prizes with separate voters. What would put a Ghanaian back near the top of the ranking is what made Abedi a name in Europe: being the decisive player for a European club in a season that ends with a trophy.

In Kenya and Uganda, the Ballon d'Or is followed through the Premier League and the Champions League, and the loyalties are often continental rather than national. Harambee Stars and Cranes fans back Mohamed Salah of Egypt, Sadio Mané of Senegal and Achraf Hakimi of Morocco as their own, and the Messi against Ronaldo debate runs hot on Nairobi fan pages. A Kampala fan opening the ranking can check the African names alongside the podium. Perhaps that is the right order: the podium is news, but the African strip is personal.

South Africa follows the award as a global event, with interest centred on the Premier League, the Champions League and the long Messi and Ronaldo era. A first Bafana Bafana name in the top 30 would be welcomed, and the European club route taken by Lyle Foster and Percy Tau offers a connection for supporters. For PSL followers, the useful lens is regional. Barbra Banda of Zambia and Temwa Chawinga of Malawi are Southern African players in the women's conversation, giving supporters neighbouring countries to follow alongside the men's award.

How Does Ballon d'Or Voting Work?

The men's Ballon d'Or is decided by a jury of journalists, one from each of the top 100 nations in the FIFA men's ranking, and a smaller panel drawn from the leading women's football nations votes for the women's award. Each juror ranks ten players from the shortlist of 30, and those places become points: 15 for first, then 12, 10, 8, 7, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1. The points are added up across every ballot, and the highest total wins. When a Nigerian, Ghanaian, Kenyan, South African or Ugandan journalist sits on the jury, that vote carries the same weight as any other.

The jury is asked to weigh individual performance and decisive impact first, then team performance and trophies, with class and fair play also considered. Since 2022 the award has covered the European season, roughly August to July, rather than the calendar year, which is why the ceremony now falls earlier in the autumn. UEFA joined the original organisers in running the award from 2024. For the reader, the practical effect is simple: a player's case is built across a whole club season, and a big summer tournament can tilt it at the end.

The 30 nominees are chosen by the organisers with advice from a panel of experts and published several weeks before the ceremony. That announcement is when searches for Ballon d'Or nominees climb in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and Uganda, and when the talk about a favourite begins in earnest. It could be argued that the shortlist day is the real start of the debate, because it is the first moment fans can see which African names made the cut and which ones they feel were missed.

Ballon d'Or, CAF Player of the Year and FIFA The Best: Which Is Which?

These awards are often treated as one, especially on fan pages, but each has its own organiser, its own voters and its own eligibility. The Ballon d'Or was created in 1956 by a French football magazine, is now run together with UEFA, is voted on by journalists, and is open to any player in the world. It is presented in the autumn after the European season, and it is the oldest of the major individual prizes, with the longest list of winners behind it.

The CAF African Player of the Year is run by the Confederation of African Football and is open only to African players, which is why Nigerian and Ghanaian fans call it the African Ballon d'Or. CAF draws its vote from football people across the continent, including national team coaches and captains, and the awards night usually comes late in the calendar year. Ademola Lookman's win in 2024 is the recent Nigerian example. A player can win CAF's prize and finish further down the Ballon d'Or ranking in the same year, because the two juries are judging different fields.

The Best FIFA Men's Player is run by FIFA itself, and its vote is split between national team coaches, national team captains, one journalist per country and fans, each group counting for a quarter. It began in 2016, after the Ballon d'Or and FIFA's prize separated following their merged years, and its ceremony date has varied. The Best includes the verdict of working footballers through the captains' votes, while the Ballon d'Or gives the journalists' verdict on a European season.

Which Other Awards Are Given on Ballon d'Or Night?

Several other prizes are handed out at the same ceremony, and the best known is the Kopa Trophy for the best young player, named after Raymond Kopa, the 1958 winner. It was first awarded in 2018, it is open to players aged 21 or under, and former Ballon d'Or winners vote for it. Lamine Yamal won it in 2025, finishing ahead of Désiré Doué, which is a neat example of how the Kopa list can preview the main ranking: Yamal was second in the main vote that same night.

The Yashin Trophy goes to the best goalkeeper and is named after Lev Yashin of the Soviet Union, who won the Ballon d'Or in 1963 and through 2026 is still the only goalkeeper to have done so. It was first given in 2019, and it matters to African fans because goalkeeping is a position where Africans have featured on recent shortlists, Senegal's Édouard Mendy among them. A keeper rarely threatens the main award, so the Yashin is where the best of them get their own moment on the stage.

The Gerd Müller Trophy rewards the leading scorer across club and international football in the season, and was first given in 2021 before taking Müller's name from 2022. The women's Ballon d'Or shares the stage with the men's award, and since 2018 it has grown into a headline of its own. Women's versions of the Kopa and Yashin trophies, plus prizes for the coach and club of the year, have been added in recent editions, so the night runs longer than it used to. If you are watching from Lagos or Nairobi, the men's winner is usually the last name announced.

Why Was There No Ballon d'Or in 2020, and Why Was It for Europeans Only Until 1995?

The Ballon d'Or was not awarded in 2020 because of the COVID pandemic, which stopped football across the world for months and left the season too disrupted to judge fairly. The organisers cancelled the men's and women's awards that year, which is why both lists jump from 2019 to 2021. It is the only year since 1956 without a winner, and in the table it appears as a row marked not awarded, so the gap is visible rather than quietly skipped.

For almost four decades, the award was open only to European players. It was created in 1956 as a prize for the best player in Europe, so a winner had to hold a European nationality, and that is the plain reason no African won before 1995. Some of the finest African players of the 1980s and early 1990s were never eligible, however well they played for clubs in France, Belgium or Portugal. Weah was the first African to benefit when the rules changed, and he did it straight away.

In short, the eligibility timeline runs like this. From 1956 to 1994, only European players could win. In 1995 the award opened to non-Europeans playing for European clubs, and from 2007 any player in the world became eligible, wherever they played. Between 2010 and 2015 the award merged with FIFA's player prize as the FIFA Ballon d'Or, with national team coaches and captains voting alongside journalists, before the two separated again in 2016. The women's award followed in 2018, and in 2022 the voting period switched from the calendar year to the European season.

When Is the Next Ballon d'Or Ceremony and How Can African Fans Watch?

The organisers confirm the date and venue of each ceremony in advance, and the ceremony module above carries the next date once it is announced. Recent editions have been held in the autumn, with the 2025 ceremony in Paris on 22 September and the 2026 edition at the London Palladium in October. As a rule, the ceremony starts in the evening European time, which means an evening in West Africa and a later night in East and Southern Africa, so fans in Nairobi and Kampala should expect the big announcement close to midnight.

How do the times convert? A ceremony starting at 20:00 GMT in London begins at 20:00 in Accra, 21:00 WAT in Lagos, 22:00 SAST in Johannesburg (the same as CAT in Lusaka and Lilongwe) and 23:00 EAT in Nairobi and Kampala. When the ceremony is in Paris in September, France is two hours ahead of GMT, so a 20:30 start in Paris becomes 18:30 GMT, 19:30 WAT, 20:30 SAST and 21:30 EAT. Always check the ceremony module for the confirmed start time, because it is set edition by edition.

Most fans across Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Uganda follow the night on their phones, through live blogs, short clips and highlights, rather than sitting through a full broadcast. The shortlist reveal draws almost as much talk as the ceremony itself. Broadcast and streaming options differ by country and can change between editions, so the where to watch details sit in the viewing module, which is the place to check before the night rather than after it.

For the rules behind other trophies and competitions, our football guides explain how each one is decided. On the night itself, check the ceremony module for the start time in your own zone, then read the top 30 by points rather than places when the ranking lands. Finally, look at the African strip before you start the argument about the podium, because the names there are the ones that will decide whether Weah finally gets company on the winners list.