Spain beating Argentina 1-0 in the World Cup final didn't just deny Messi a tenth star on his shirt — it blew the 2026 Ballon d'Or race wide open. Had La Albiceleste defended their title, the ninth award felt like a formality. Now? It's a genuine contest for the first time in years.
Rodri won the 2024 Ballon d'Or and was named player of the tournament at the World Cup. That's a compelling case for a second straight. His compatriot Lamine Yamal is in the conversation off the back of his season at Barcelona, while Kylian Mbappe and Harry Kane are both in the mix. PSG retained the Champions League, and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia — already a cult figure at the club — is building the kind of CV that gets you on the shortlist. This field has more live contenders than any edition in recent memory, which makes the odds landscape worth watching closely as October approaches.
Who actually votes, and how
France Football runs the award — they've done so since Gabriel Hanot launched it in 1956 to recognize the continent's best. It took until 1995 to open voting to non-European players, and another 12 years before it became a truly global award. The FIFA Ballon d'Or experiment ran from 2010 to 2015 before France Football went back to operating it independently.
The voters are media members — one per eligible nation. Before 2022, over 180 countries had a ballot. That's been trimmed to the top 100 nations in the FIFA men's world ranking for the men's award, and the top 50 for the women's. Each voter picks from a 30-player shortlist compiled by journalists at France Football and L'Equipe, then ranks their choices. The full ballots — names, outlets, rankings — are published publicly after the ceremony. No backroom deals, no hidden tallies.
The criteria shifted ahead of the 2022 edition too. Career legacy used to carry serious weight, which is widely seen as why Messi edged Lewandowski in 2021 despite the Pole's extraordinary numbers that season. Now voters are explicitly directed toward individual performance and decisive actions, team achievements, and fair play. The playing field is more level than it used to be — at least in theory.
London gets the ceremony for the first time
The 2026 gala takes place on Monday, October 27, at 8 p.m. local time (3 p.m. ET). London hosts for the first time, with the London Palladium — opened in 1910, one of the most iconic theatre venues in the world — reported as the venue, though organisers haven't officially confirmed it.
With Rodri as defending champion, a Barcelona teenager with a World Cup runners-up medal, and PSG's Champions League winning squad all pushing candidates, whoever takes this one will have earned it the hard way. The 2026 race doesn't have a clear frontrunner. That's what makes it interesting.
