Ballon d'Or 2026: Suspicious $264,000 bets target France Football

Harry Kane was crowned Ballon d’Or 2026 on Monday evening in London, ahead of Kylian Mbappé and Lamine Yamal. But the ceremony was immediately overshadowed by a serious controversy: investigative journalist Romain Molina claims that someone allegedly bet $264,000 on the exact top five of the rankings through multiple accounts before the results were announced.

Molina directly targeted Vincent Garcia, editor-in-chief of France Football, in a series of statements published immediately after the awards. “In his place, I would especially look for leaks and how someone bet $264,000 on the top five in advance through different accounts,” he wrote. If the accusation is founded, it suggests that the absolute secrecy promised by the organizers around the vote would have been breached, allowing bettors to anticipate the result with troubling precision.

The journalist also points to what he describes as a double standard from the leadership. He criticizes Garcia for now openly promoting “campaign” lobbying around the trophy — a practice that the current editor-in-chief had himself criticized his predecessor Pascal Ferré for. “Funny to see Vincent Garcia going on every media outlet, explaining that you now have to run a campaign and doing exactly what he deplored from one of his predecessors,” Molina said.

These accusations place France Football in a delicate position. The Ballon d’Or, the most prestigious individual trophy in world football, has already faced several credibility crises in recent years. The leadership had not publicly responded to Molina’s accusations at the time of publication of this article.