England captain Harry Kane won the 2026 Ballon d’Or, the men’s award for the world’s best footballer, at a ceremony in London on October 26, 2026.
The 33-year-old Bayern Munich striker is the first English winner since Michael Owen in 2001 and the fifth Englishman overall, after Stanley Matthews, Bobby Charlton, Kevin Keegan and Owen. Real Madrid’s Kylian Mbappe finished second and Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal third. Kane scored 61 goals in 51 club matches in 2025–26, a Bayern record for a single season, and 73 goals in 65 games including England matches. He won despite losing in the semi-finals of both the World Cup and the Champions League, lifting only the German league and cup double. He is also the first Bayern player to win the award since Karl-Heinz Rummenigge in 1981. Kane’s previous best Ballon d’Or finish had been 10th.
Source: BBC Sport, “Kane ends England’s 25-year Ballon d’Or wait” (October 26, 2026)
Image: Ballon d’Or trophy at the Real Madrid Museum by Ank Kumar, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.