Harry Kane has won the Ballon d’Or for the first time, completing a journey that has taken him from years of near-misses to the top of world football. The Bayern Munich and England striker was named the winner at a ceremony in London on Monday, October 26, 2026, for the 70th edition of the award, presented by France Football to the best men’s player in the world.
Kane finished ahead of France striker Kylian Mbappe in second place and Spain winger Lamine Yamal in third. Taking the stage in London, the city where he spent most of his club career, Kane admitted he was almost lost for words. He thanked the voters and congratulated the other nominees and winners, saying the night showed what determination and hard work can achieve. The ceremony was held at the London Palladium to mark the award’s 70th anniversary, honouring Stanley Matthews, the first winner.
A record-breaking season for Bayern Munich
The case for Kane was built on numbers that were hard to ignore. In the 2025-26 season, he scored 61 goals in 51 games for Bayern Munich across all competitions, the most prolific club campaign of his life. He finished as the Bundesliga’s leading scorer with 36 goals, and added 14 more in the Champions League as Bayern reached the semi-finals.
Those goals helped Bayern complete a domestic league and cup double. It was Kane’s second consecutive Bundesliga title since moving to Germany, a sharp change of fortune for a player whose trophy cabinet had stayed empty for so long in England.
As England captain, Kane also scored six goals at the World Cup as England reached the semi-finals, once again leading the team with his finishing and calm leadership in big matches.
From Tottenham heartbreak to Bayern triumph
Kane’s path to the award makes the win resonate beyond the statistics. He rose through Tottenham Hotspur, playing more than 300 matches for the London club between 2009 and 2023, and became one of the Premier League’s great scorers. Yet the major team trophies never came during his time in north London.
His move to Bayern Munich in 2023 changed that story. In Germany, he finally collected the league titles that had eluded him, while keeping — and then raising — the scoring rate that had made his name. The Ballon d’Or is the individual honour that completes that transformation: from a brilliant striker without a trophy to a champion recognised as the best in the world.
Who Kane beat — and who won the women’s award
The final ranking underlined how strong the field was. Mbappe, one of the most feared forwards in the world, finished second, while Yamal, still one of the youngest stars at the top of the game, finished third. Rodri, Lionel Messi, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Ousmane Dembele, Erling Haaland, Michael Olise, and Fabian Ruiz completed the top ten.
On the same night, Spain midfielder Alexia Putellas won the Ballon d’Or Feminin for the third time, adding another major honour to a career already filled with team and individual success. Her win was a reminder of the depth at the top of the women’s game, even on a night dominated by Kane’s breakthrough.
How the Ballon d’Or is decided
The Ballon d’Or is not decided by fans or by a single panel of experts. A 30-player shortlist is drawn up first, and then journalists — one from each of the top 100 countries in the FIFA rankings — rank the candidates. Their votes are combined to produce the final winner.
Voters were therefore weighing a full season of goals, titles, and leadership for both club and country — and Kane’s record was the strongest in the field.
A place among England’s greats
Kane is now only the fifth Englishman to win the Ballon d’Or. Matthews won the first award in 1956, Bobby Charlton followed in 1966, Kevin Keegan won it in both 1978 and 1979, and Michael Owen was the last English winner, in 2001. Twenty-five years later, Kane has joined that list.
The award does not settle every debate about the greatest players of this era. What it does settle, for this season at least, is who stood above the rest. After years of waiting, Harry Kane’s name is now on the Ballon d’Or — and, for the first time in a quarter of a century, that name is English.