Kane Wins 2026 Ballon d’Or
Harry Kane won the 2026 Ballon d’Or at the London Palladium on Monday, becoming the first Englishman to take the award since Michael Owen in 2001 and the first Bayern Munich player to win it in 45 years.
The 70th edition was the first held outside France, staged in London to honour Stanley Matthews, the inaugural winner in 1956. Kane finished ahead of Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal and Real Madrid’s Kylian Mbappé. He is the fifth Englishman to win, after Matthews, Bobby Charlton, Kevin Keegan and Owen.
The award recognises the 2025/26 season. Kane scored 73 goals in 65 games for club and country, including 61 in 51 for Bayern, and 36 in 31 Bundesliga matches, making him the league’s top scorer for the third season running since he joined from Tottenham Hotspur in 2023. He helped Bayern win the Bundesliga and the DFB-Pokal. Earlier in the evening he was named Attacker of the Year and received the Gerd Müller Award for top scorer.
Kane’s win ends a long wait for his club. He is Bayern’s first foreign winner and the club’s fourth overall, after Gerd Müller, Franz Beckenbauer and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, whose six awards between them include Kane’s. Rummenigge was the last Bayern player to win, in 1981. The setting carried personal weight, as London is Kane’s home city and where he began his professional career at Tottenham. Bayern chairman Herbert Hainer, chief executive Christoph Dreesen and team-mate Michael Olise travelled to the ceremony.
Alexia Putellas won the women’s award for the third time in her career, The Nation reports. Barcelona were also among the night’s major winners. Lamine Yamal and Vicky López took the men’s and women’s Kopa Trophies for the best young players, Cata Coll won the women’s Yashin Trophy, and the club’s women’s side was named Women’s Club of the Year. Spain goalkeeper Unai Simón won the men’s Yashin Trophy, Spain coach Luis de la Fuente and Barcelona manager Pere Romeu received the Johan Cruyff Trophies, and Paris Saint-Germain were named Men’s Club of the Year.
The Gerd Müller Trophies went to Kane and Mexico international Charlyn Corral in the men’s and women’s categories, and Arsenal forward Bukayo Saka received the Sócrates Award for humanitarian work.
