Harry Kane beats Kylian Mbappe by just 28 points to win 2026 Ballon d’Or

Harry Kane defeated Kylian Mbappe by just 28 points to win the 2026 Ballon d’Or, with the full voting results revealing one of the closest contests in the award’s history.

According to the Daily Mail⁠, the Bayern Munich striker collected 1,055 points from 100 international journalists, narrowly ahead of Mbappe’s 1,027.

Kane enjoyed an outstanding 2025-26 campaign, scoring 73 goals as Bayern secured a domestic treble before captaining England to third place at the World Cup.

Lamine Yamal finished third with 881 points, followed by Rodri (726) and Lionel Messi (612).

Interestingly, Mbappe received more first-place votes than Kane, collecting 23 compared with the Englishman’s 40?

Kane was ranked first by 40 journalists, earning him 15 points from each vote, while two voters excluded him from their top ten.

The 28-point difference was narrower than Rodri’s 41-point victory over Vinicius Junior in 2024.