SportsCatch
EN

Stuck 40 minutes in Soho, Dembélé leaves 2026 Ballon d'Or ceremony frustrated

After the 2026 Ballon d'Or ceremony at London Palladium, Ousmane Dembélé had to wait nearly 40 minutes before leaving the venue, his van blocked on a Soho street. Cristiano Ronaldo and Luis Figo experienced the same logistical issues.

1 min read
Stuck 40 minutes in Soho, Dembélé leaves 2026 Ballon d'Or ceremony frustrated
Share

The 2025 Ballon d’Or winner was unable to leave the ceremony as planned. Monday evening in London, following the gala held at London Palladium, Ousmane Dembélé waited nearly 40 minutes before his van could pick him up, the vehicle blocked on a street in the Soho district and unable to access the red carpet entrance.

The PSG forward, who wanted to leave among the first, expressed his frustration directly to the ceremony organizers. Paris Saint-Germain’s security team mobilized to find a quick solution, without immediate success.

Dembélé was not alone in experiencing this logistical setback. Cristiano Ronaldo and former Ballon d’Or winner Luis Figo found themselves in the same situation, also forced to wait before leaving the area.

The situation finally resolved after about forty minutes, allowing the PSG number 10 to depart from an evening that, on the sporting front, belonged to him.

Share
{# Sitewide native fullscreen interstitial — our own bet-CTA card blown up to a takeover (replaces the SDK overlay). The shared card animations + countdown load once, AFTER the interstitial markup, so the countdown script's first tick sees this card's node too (the in-read card, in
above, already exists). One include covers both surfaces. #}