Sportsupdated 1h ago2 min read
Archive photo · 22 August 2021Harry Kane Wins Ballon d'Or 2026, Ending England’s 25-Year Wait
10 Western Mainstream3 Other2 Local Western1 West AsianPhoto: No Swan So Fine, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Cropped for layout
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Harry Kane won the Ballon d'Or 2026, first English winner since 2001 Michael Owen. Ceremony held in London at the London Palladium where Kane was crowned.
16 outlets told this the same way.
Kane ends wait
Harry Kane became the first English player to win the Ballon d'Or since Michael Owen in 2001 after being crowned the world's best player at a ceremony in London. The 33-year-old Bayern Munich striker scored 61 goals in 51 club matches last season, and he added 12 goals for England, taking his total to 73 goals in 65 matches. BBC Sport said Kane was the fifth Englishman to win in total, with Stanley Matthews (1956), Bobby Charlton (1966) and Kevin Keegan (1978 and 1979) the others.
The BBC also noted that Kane won the award despite not lifting either of football's biggest prizes last season, having lost in both the World Cup and Champions League semi-finals. The ceremony at the London Palladium made Kane the first Bayern player to win the Ballon d'Or since Karl-Heinz Rummenigge in 1981, and it placed him ahead of Kylian Mbappé and Lamine Yamal.
Numbers and rivals
Alan Shearer told BBC Sport that "The winner of the Ballon d'Or should be Harry Kane," citing Kane's "numbers for the last 12 to 18 months" for Bayern and England. Danny Murphy added that "His goalscoring has been relentless, brilliant," and he said Kane had "one of the best seasons of his career" as a reward. Kane finished as the Bundesliga's top scorer with 36 goals, and he scored 14 in the Champions League for the beaten semi-finalists.
Billionaires.Africa said Kane finished ahead of Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappé and Barcelona's Lamine Yamal, and it described Mbappé as having 58 goals in all competitions. The same source said Yamal won the Kopa Trophy for the best young player for a third straight year on Monday, while Kane also collected the Gerd Müller Trophy as the season's best striker earlier in the evening.
What the win means
Harry Kane's Ballon d'Or win came after Bayern Munich won the Bundesliga and the German Cup, completing a domestic double with the English striker playing a leading role. Kane scored 36 goals in 31 Bundesliga appearances, and he was the German league's leading scorer. Bayern's run in the Champions League ended in the semifinals, where Paris Saint-Germain beat them 6-5 on aggregate.
The BBC said Kane became the first Bayern player to win the Ballon d'Or since Karl-Heinz Rummenigge in 1981, and it also said the striker had scored 10 goals in his opening 12 games for Bayern. Kane succeeded Frenchman Ousmane Dembélé, and the London ceremony crowned a club and international season that was record-breaking, with Kane scoring 73 goals for Bayern Munich and England and taking bronze at the World Cup.