The Ballon d'Or isn't decided by fans, algorithms, or a back-room committee of suits. It comes down to 100 journalists — one per country, ranked by FIFA's top 100 nations as of September 2026 — each submitting a ranked ballot of 10 players. That's it. That's the process.
France Football runs the whole thing, and with this year's race shaping up as one of the most contested in recent memory — Harry Kane, Kylian Mbappé, and Lamine Yamal all in the frame — understanding exactly how those ballots translate into points matters more than usual.
How the points system actually works
Each journalist ranks 10 players in descending order. First place gets 15 points. Second gets 12. Then it drops to 10, 8, 7, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 for positions three through ten. The player with the highest total when every ballot is counted wins the trophy.
The gap between first and second place — 15 points versus 12 — is significant. A voter who genuinely believes in their top pick is worth a lot more than one who slots someone in at third or fourth almost by default. In a tight race, the number of first-place votes could swing everything.
Voters are asked to weigh three criteria when making their selections, though the source article's list of those criteria appears to have been omitted from the original text — France Football has historically pointed to individual performance, team performance, and overall quality of the season.
Who's doing the voting — and where the scrutiny falls
Past panelists include Paul Kennedy of Soccer America for the United States, Mark Gleeson of South Africa, Henry Winter of England, and Luis Rolando Solares of Guatemala. These are working journalists with actual opinions, not ceremonial appointments.
This year's ceremony is being held at London's Palladium theatre — a nod to the 70th anniversary of Stanley Matthews winning the inaugural award — which gives the whole event a slightly different weight than the usual Paris setting.
With the men's race this disputed, expect the individual ballots to be forensically picked apart once they're published. Every journalist who placed Yamal fourth instead of first, or left Kane off entirely, will hear about it. The voting panel is transparent by design — and in a close finish, that transparency cuts both ways.
