Kane's Ballon d'Or Win Was Closer Than It Looked: 28 Points Over Mbappé

The full voting for the 2026 Ballon d'Or has revealed just how narrow Harry Kane's triumph really was. Published by L'Équipe on Friday, the complete results show the England captain and Bayern Munich striker finishing on 1,055 points, only 28 ahead of Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappé on 1,027. Barcelona teenager Lamine Yamal was third with 881 points, followed by Rodri on 726 and Lionel Messi on 612. Kane became the first Englishman to win the award since Michael Owen in 2001 when he was crowned on Monday, October 26, but the breakdown shows the race was far from a procession. Forty of the voting nations placed Kane first, while 23 gave their top vote to Mbappé, underlining how split opinion was among the 100 journalists who decide the prize. Three voters left Mbappé out of their top ten entirely — Scotland, Greece and Ukraine — a quirk that only sharpens the sense of a contest decided at the margins. For Kane, though, the numbers change nothing about the achievement: a first Ballon d'Or, won by the tightest of margins over the two players most expected to dominate the award for years to come.