Ballon d’Or: Harry Kane and Alexia Putellas win top awards

Goals decided Kane’s striker award

Kane’s separate Gerd Müller men’s award, also called Striker of the Year, recognised 73 goals in 65 matches for Bayern Munich and England across all competitions. Those goals came during the Ballon d’Or assessment period, from August 2025 through the end of the World Cup in July 2026. His total was the highest in the men’s game, ESPN said.

The striker award is decided by goals rather than votes. The men’s Ballon d’Or uses a different method: one journalist from each of the world football governing body’s top 100-ranked countries votes for the winner.

Final standings and club records

Kane is the seventh player to win the men’s award while playing for a Bundesliga club. Sammer, his predecessor from the league, played for Borussia Dortmund. Kane is also Bayern Munich’s first winner since Karl-Heinz Rummenigge in 1981. (See DW, first published on 22 October and revised on 27 October.)

Putellas’s third women’s Ballon d’Or followed her wins in 2021 and 2022. She equalled Spain teammate Aitana Bonmatí’s record of three awards; Bonmatí won in 2023, 2024 and 2025.

Striker, club and humanitarian honours

Corral, the women’s striker winner, is from Mexico. Saka plays for Arsenal and England. The Socrates Award recognises humanitarian work by football figures.

Coaching and goalkeeper honours

Prepared winner profiles appeared before the ceremony

ESPN said the organisers accidentally published prepared profiles naming different men’s winners before the ceremony, then removed them. Organiser France Football said profiles had been prepared for all nominees and did not indicate the final results or rankings.

Presenters dedicate ceremony to jailed journalist

Presenters Kate Scott, a British broadcaster, and Thierry Henry, a former France striker, dedicated the ceremony to French sports journalist Christophe Gleizes at its opening on 26 October, BBC said. A large screen displayed Gleizes’s photograph and said he had been jailed for one year, three months and 27 days. He is serving a seven-year prison sentence in Algeria.

Gleizes, 37, travelled to Algeria in May 2024 to report on football club Jeunesse Sportive de Kabylie. Algerian authorities accused him of supporting terrorism and possessing publications deemed harmful to national security. His case centred on contacts with a club official also associated with the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie. Algeria designated that movement a terrorist organisation in 2021.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which campaigns for his release, says the exchanges were journalistic and some contacts predated the group’s outlawing. Prosecutors argued that Gleizes had travelled to Algeria to commit a hostile act, not to carry out journalistic work.

RSF has announced a solidarity football match for 11 November as part of its campaign for Gleizes’s release.