Harry Kane has ended England’s 25-year watch for the lads’s Ballon d’Or after profitable the celebrated particular person award at Monday’s rite in London.
The Bayern Munich striker changed into the primary Englishman since Michael Owen in 2001 to be named the sector’s perfect male footballer.
The England captain claimed the respect forward of a powerful box of nominees, together with France’s Ousmane Dembélé and Kylian Mbappé, Norway’s Erling Haaland, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Argentina’s Lionel Messi and Spain’s teenage sensation Lamine Yamal.
The 2026 rite, organised through France Soccer, recognised exceptional particular person and staff performances throughout males’s and ladies’s soccer.
The award represents a significant milestone for Kane, who has established himself amongst Europe’s main forwards thru his goalscoring consistency and performances for membership and nation.
In the meantime, Spain and Barcelona midfielder Alexia Putellas received the ladies’s Ballon d’Or for the 3rd time, equalling the file set through her former teammate Aitana Bonmatí.
Putellas was once rewarded for an impressive 2025-26 marketing campaign during which she captained Barcelona to 4 primary trophies: the Spanish Liga F, Copa de los angeles Reina, Spanish Tremendous Cup and UEFA Girls’s Champions League.
Her achievements additionally integrated enjoying a key position in Spain’s International locations League triumph.
After receiving the award, Putellas thanked her teammates and stated the standard of the opposite nominees.
“I believe someone right here can have rather received this trophy and be giving this speech right here presently,” she mentioned.
The rite additionally celebrated rising skills, coaches, goalkeepers and golf equipment that prominent themselves all through the season.
Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal received the lads’s younger participant award, whilst Vicky López claimed the corresponding girls’s honour.
Barcelona Femeni and Paris Saint-Germain had been named the ladies’s and males’s golf equipment of the yr, respectively.
Spain’s Pere Romeu and Luis de los angeles Fuente gained the ladies’s and males’s trainer of the yr awards, whilst goalkeepers Cata Coll and Unai Simon received the corresponding prizes within the girls’s and males’s classes.
Kane additionally claimed the lads’s most sensible scorer award, with Mexico’s Charlyn Corral receiving the ladies’s an identical.
England ahead Bukayo Saka gained the Socrates Award, which recognises humanitarian paintings and social tasks.
The rite introduced in combination main figures in international soccer to rejoice particular person excellence and achievements around the sport.
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