Sportsupdated 1h ago2 min read
Archive photo · 22 August 2021Ballon d'Or Website Leaks Harry Kane, Lamine Yamal, Kylian Mbappé Winners Before Ceremony
8 Western Mainstream2 Western TabloidPhoto: No Swan So Fine, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Cropped for layout
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Ballon d'Or website published three separate articles naming Kane, Yamal, and Mbappé as winners. Articles appeared hours before the ceremony and were quickly removed amid widespread confusion.
10 outlets told this the same way.
Premature Ballon d'Or Articles
The official Ballon d'Or website article titled "Harry Kane wins the 2026 Ballon d'Or" began to circulate online at 17:15 GMT on Monday, shortly after the award's winner was due to be announced at a star-studded event at London's Palladium Theatre. Further digging on the Ballon d'Or website revealed similar pieces had been penned and published for Barcelona's Lamine Yamal, Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe, and Lionel Messi of Inter Miami. The Ballon d'Or website removed the articles about Kane and Mbappe just before 17:40 BST, while it was unclear whether the articles were published by mistake or removed intentionally.
“It was shortly after 17:15 GMT on Monday when an article from the award's official website titled ‘Harry Kane wins the 2026 Ballon d'Or’ began to circulate online.”
The BBC also said similar articles were written about London City Lionesses star Alexia Putellas and Barcelona's Ewa Pajor for the women's award taking place on Monday night. The Daily Express described the same online chaos as the day arrived for the 2026 edition of the Ballon d'Or in London tonight, with Kane, Yamal and Mbappe presented as leading candidates for the men's award.
Top Three Named, Then Removed
The ESPN reported that the official Ballon d'Or website mistakenly published articles naming three different players as winners of the 2026 men's award hours before Monday's ceremony in London. The articles appeared around two-and-a-half hours before the ceremony was due to begin at the London Palladium, prompting speculation that the winner had been revealed early. "Complete chaos" surrounded the organisers' website as it named Harry Kane, Lamine Yamal and Kylian Mbappé as the winner around two and a half hours before the ceremony was due to begin, and the articles swiftly disappeared from the site.
The Independent said the Ballon d'Or was plunged into chaos after its official website published three separate articles claiming Harry Kane, Lamine Yamal and Kylian Mbappe had all won before the start of the ceremony. The Daily Express said the Ballon d'Or website had deleted their articles naming Harry Kane and Kylian Mbappe as winners, while Lamine Yamal's was still curiously online.
Ceremony Stakes and Fallout
If Kane is to realise his dream and become the first Englishman to win the award since 2001, he will have to wait a little longer to find out. The ceremony gets underway at 8pm GMT with the Ballon d’Or winner set to be crowned around 9:45pm GMT, placing the premature website claims in the hours before the official moment. The Flashscore said the 70th ceremony of the Ballon d'Or to honour its first-ever winner, Sir Stanley Matthews, was being hosted in London, and it quoted the official website's Article 9 on how ties would be handled.
“The ceremony gets underway at 8pm GMT with the Ballon d’Or winner set to be crowned around 9:45pm GMT.”
Michael Owen has arrived for the 70th edition of the Ballon d'Or and called him "the last Englishman to win the award, having done so in 2001." The Guardian said European fashion retailers are facing fresh questions over supply chain oversight after a fire at a factory that supplied them killed at least 33 garment workers in Bangladesh, but the Ballon d'Or sources instead focused on the organisers' website blunder and the ceremony at The London Palladium.
