Harry Kane’s Ballon d’Or case faces test against history
The reported bookmakers’ favourite scored 73 goals in 2025–26, but Bayern Munich’s European exit and England’s third-place World Cup finish leave voters weighing individual output against major honours.
Harry Kane is the reported bookmakers’ favourite ahead of the Ballon d’Or shortlist announcement, after scoring 73 goals for Bayern Munich and England during the 2025–26 season. The tally comprised 61 goals for Bayern and 12 for England.
Bayern won the Bundesliga and DFB-Pokal, while England finished third at the World Cup. Bayern’s Champions League campaign ended in the semi-finals against eventual winners Paris Saint-Germain, leaving Kane without the European title that has strengthened recent winners’ claims.
BBC Sport’s review of Ballon d’Or history found that voting has often favoured players who lifted the World Cup, European Championship, Copa America or Champions League during the relevant year. World Cup winners including Bobby Charlton, Paolo Rossi, Lothar Matthäus, Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo and Fabio Cannavaro all went on to claim the award.
That pattern is not an absolute requirement. Johan Cruyff won in 1974 after taking the Netherlands to the World Cup final, while Luka Modrić did so in 2018 after Croatia reached the final. In more recent voting, only four of the previous 19 winners failed to lift one of the major international or continental trophies during their winning year.
Kane has never finished higher than 10th in the award. His reported rivals include Rodri, Kylian Mbappé, Lamine Yamal, Erling Haaland, Michael Olise, Declan Rice and Jude Bellingham. A victory would make Kane the fifth Englishman to win the Ballon d’Or and the first player representing a Bundesliga club to do so since Matthias Sammer in 1996.
