London, Oct 27:
England captain and Bayern Munich striker Harry Kane won the 2026 men’s Ballon d’Or on Monday, becoming the first Englishman since Michael Owen in 2001 to claim football’s most prestigious individual award. The 33-year-old received the honour at a ceremony at the London Palladium, beating Kylian Mbappe and Lamine Yamal in the voting.
Kane was rewarded for a prolific 2025-26 season in which he scored 73 goals in 65 appearances for club and country. He netted 61 goals in 51 matches for Bayern Munich, helping the German club win the Bundesliga and German Cup. He also scored six goals for England at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, where the team finished third.
The award makes Kane the fifth Englishman to win the men’s Ballon d’Or, following Sir Stanley Matthews in 1956, Sir Bobby Charlton in 1966, Kevin Keegan in 1978 and 1979, and Owen in 2001. Kane also won the European Golden Shoe as Europe’s leading domestic-league goalscorer and received the Gerd Müller Trophy for the best striker.
Kane’s triumph marks a major milestone in a career that saw him establish himself among the world’s leading goalscorers before securing major team honours with Bayern. He had never finished higher than 10th in the Ballon d’Or voting before this year.
Spain’s Yamal and France’s Mbappe were among Kane’s leading rivals for the award. Kane’s victory ends a 25-year wait for an English winner and adds the Ballon d’Or to a season in which his goals helped Bayern secure domestic silverware and England achieve a strong World Cup finish.