Sports · NEWS EXPLAINER
Harry Kane wins 2026 Ballon d’Or; Alexia Putellas takes her third women’s award
Kane became the first English men’s winner since 2001, while Putellas added a third trophy after Barcelona’s treble-winning season.
Harry Kane won the 2026 men’s Ballon d’Or in London after a 61-goal Bayern Munich season, ending a 25-year wait for an English winner.
Alexia Putellas won the women’s Ballon d’Or for a third time. The final men’s ranking placed Kylian Mbappé second and Lamine Yamal third.
Kane ended England’s 25-year wait
Harry Kane became the first Englishman to win the men’s Ballon d’Or since Michael Owen in 2001. The award followed a season in which he scored 61 goals in 51 Bayern Munich matches.
The men’s top five was tightly distinguished
Kylian Mbappé finished second, Lamine Yamal third, Rodri fourth and Lionel Messi fifth. Kane’s 73 goals for club and country supplied the clearest quantitative case cited in the independent report.
Putellas won for a third time
Alexia Putellas took the women’s Ballon d’Or after Barcelona’s 2025–26 treble and Spanish Super Cup. She moved to London City Lionesses in July after 14 years with Barcelona.
The ceremony distributed more than two headline trophies
The official results also list Lamine Yamal and Vicky López as young-player winners, Unai Simón and Cata Coll as goalkeeper winners, and Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona as the men’s and women’s clubs of the year.
What the awards do—and do not—measure
The published ranking records the jury outcome for the 2025–26 season; it is not a live table of current form. The verified facts are the winners, the final ranking and the season record behind the result—not a forecast of who will dominate the next campaign.
