Kane edges Mbappe in tightest Ballon d'Or vote for years to become first English winner since Owen

Harry Kane has been crowned Ballon d’Or winner in one of the closest votes in the award’s recent history, with the Bayern Munich striker edging Kylian Mbappe in a race that went down to the wire. Kane becomes the first Englishman to win the honour since Michael Owen claimed it in 2001.

Vincent Garcia, editor-in-chief of France Football — the publication that oversees the voting process — confirmed the margin between Kane and Mbappe was even smaller than the 41-point gap that separated Rodri and Vinicius Jr in 2024, itself considered a remarkably tight finish at the time. “Kylian led the race for a long time, but Harry Kane came back into contention, and in the end, it was decided by a very, very small number of points,” Garcia said. The full official vote count is set to be published on 31 October.

Real Madrid and France forward Mbappe finished second, with Spain’s Lamine Yamal — a World Cup winner — taking third place.

Kane is only the fifth Englishman to lift the Ballon d’Or, joining Stanley Matthews (1956), Bobby Charlton (1966), Kevin Keegan (1978 and 1979), and Owen. The closeness of this year’s result invites comparison with 2019, when Lionel Messi pipped Virgil van Dijk by just seven votes — still the tightest margin on record in the modern era.

For context, last year’s award was far less competitive: Ousmane Dembele beat Yamal by 321 votes. Messi’s 2023 win over Erling Haaland came by 105 votes, and Karim Benzema’s 2022 triumph over Sadio Mané by 356. The one comparable recent result was Messi’s 2021 win over Robert Lewandowski by 33 votes.

The award caps an extraordinary individual season for Kane, who scored 61 goals in 51 appearances for Bayern Munich — a club record — and finished the campaign with 73 goals and eight assists across all competitions in just 65 matches. The winner is determined by a specialised panel of journalists drawn from the top 100 FIFA-ranked nations.

“Not many people would have thought it, and maybe even I wouldn’t have thought I’d be here,” Kane said after collecting the trophy.