Ballon d'Or 2026: PSG have 10 of the 30 nominees, Italy none

On Tuesday 8 September 2026, France Football magazine released the 30 nominees for the men's Ballon d'Or and the 30 for the women's award, according to the Associated Press. The 2026 edition is the 70th of the men's prize and the eighth of the women's, by the official website's count, and the ceremony was scheduled for 26 October 2026 in London, which would be the award's first ceremony in the city.

In the men's list, checked on ballondor.com on 11 September 2026, Paris Saint-Germain have 10 of the 30 names by the official site's count, which includes Ferran Torres. Spain, who won the World Cup on 19 July 2026, have 6 nominees, the largest group by nationality on the official page. Italy, Germany and the Netherlands have none, the AP noted, and between them they won 19 Ballons d'Or from 1956 to 2025, according to the official list of winners.

For Brazil, Terra counted three nominees on 8 September 2026: the centre-backs Gabriel Magalhães of Arsenal and Marquinhos of PSG, and the forward Vinícius Júnior of Real Madrid. Goalkeeper Lorena is, according to the same Terra report, the only Brazilian among the 30 on the women's list, and Flamengo are the only non-European club among the five men's Club of the Year nominees, according to the official site.

The window that closed on the day of the World Cup final

Article 3 of the 2026 regulations sets the reference period from 3 August 2025 to 19 July 2026. For the men, that takes in the World Cup and the Africa Cup of Nations; for the women, the Asian Cup and the Nations League finals. The Women's Africa Cup of Nations, which ended on 16 August, outside the window, counts towards the following season.

According to the AP, 19 July 2026 was the day of the World Cup final. At MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, Spain beat Argentina 1-0 with a Ferran Torres goal in the 106th minute, according to CBS and the AP, and won their second world title, following their 2010 triumph in South Africa. Rodri, the 2024 Ballon d'Or winner, received the World Cup Golden Ball as the best player of the tournament, Sky Sports reported on 20 July 2026.

Of the 30 nominees, 29 played at the World Cup: according to Foot Mercato, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, the Georgian at PSG, is the only one who did not. Together, the 30 scored 63 goals at the tournament, according to the official site on 10 September 2026. France, with Dembélé and Mbappé, lost their semi-final to Spain, and Harry Kane's England finished third, according to the AP.

Who draws up the list and who votes

Under article 1 of the 2026 regulations, the Ballon d'Or and its voting are organised by the monthly magazine France Football, and the ceremony is co-organised with UEFA. Under article 6, the list of 30 is drawn up by France Football's editorial staff, by members of the L'Équipe newsroom, by at least one juror from the previous edition and by the UEFA ambassadors Luis Figo and Fabio Capello for the men, and Nadine Kessler for the women.

Only then does the jury vote. Under article 5, it is made up of specialist journalists, one per country: the top 100 in the FIFA ranking for the men and the top 50 for the women, using the ranking in force when the lists were published, on 8 September 2026. Each juror names ten players in descending order, and article 4 sets three criteria, in order of importance: individual performance, decisive and impressive in character; team performance and titles; class and fair play.

The scale in article 7 gives 67 points per ballot. With 100 complete ballots in the men's vote, 6,700 points are at stake, and a player's ceiling is 1,500, the total for someone ranked first on every ballot. In the women's vote, with 50 ballots, there are 3,350 points and a ceiling of 750. Under article 8, a tie is broken by the number of first places, then second places, and so on; under article 9, disputes over the vote rest with the editor-in-chief of France Football.

PSG's 10, and the count that comes to 33

According to the official site, PSG are the club with the most nominees, and the same site links that presence, one third of the 30, to the two consecutive Champions League titles under Luis Enrique. The ten, on the official page, are Hakimi, Fabián Ruiz, Ferran Torres, João Neves, Kvaratskhelia, Marquinhos, Nuno Mendes, Dembélé, Vitinha and Pacho. The AP counted nine, and ten with Ferran Torres, whom the agency described on 8 September 2026 as a recent signing.

Ferran Torres counts towards PSG under a rule on the official site: players who changed clubs in mid-2026, like him and Marc Cucurella, have their nomination credited equally to both clubs. Rodri is also credited to two clubs, Manchester City and Barcelona.

There are 30 players and 33 credits because three count twice: Ferran Torres for Barcelona and PSG, Cucurella for Chelsea and Real Madrid, and Rodri for Manchester City and Barcelona.

The map by country, against 69 editions

The official page for the 30 records 13 nationalities. The table sets that map against the official list of winners, published on 7 September 2026, which breaks down the 69 men's awards from 1956 to 2025 by nationality.

Germany only reach 7 by adding 6 awards recorded under West Germany and 1 under Germany, Sammer's, in 1996. The 8 Argentine awards all belong to Messi. The other countries are different groups in the two columns: the 13 awards belong to the USSR (3) and to Czechoslovakia, Scotland, Hungary, Northern Ireland, Denmark, Bulgaria, Liberia, the Czech Republic, Ukraine and Croatia; the 7 nominees come from Colombia, Norway, Morocco, Georgia, Senegal, Ecuador and Mexico. There was no award in 2020 because of Covid.

For Italy, the gap goes beyond the main list: there is no Italian among the 30 men or the 30 women, according to the official pages. The national team did not qualify for the World Cup, the AP noted, and the only Serie A player among the 30 is Inter's Argentine Lautaro Martínez. According to Calcio e Finanza, on 8 September 2026, it was his fifth nomination, and his best finish, up to the 2025 edition, was seventh place in 2024. Gianluigi Donnarumma, the 2025 Goalkeeper of the Year, was left out of the ten nominees for the 2026 Goalkeeper of the Year award, Il Messaggero noted. Among the Kopa Trophy nominees, for young players, Kerim Alajbegović of Bosnia and Herzegovina, registered with RB Salzburg, was signed by Juventus in August 2026, according to the official profile.

Germany have none of the 30, but Bayern Munich have 4 credits: Upamecano, Kane, Luis Díaz and Olise. Among the ten Kopa Trophy nominees is the German Lennart Karl, of Bayern, aged 18 on the official profile.

Each nominee's numbers, from the official profile

The profile the official site published on 8 September 2026 for each nominee gives neither the period covered nor whether it includes international matches. The AP described Kane's 73 goals as scored for club and country, the same figure as on the profile. The table gathers the five nominees with the most goals.

According to the profile, Kane won the Bundesliga, the DFB-Pokal and the German Super Cup; Haaland, the FA Cup and the League Cup; Messi, MLS. The profile lists no trophy for Mbappé, Quiñones or Vinícius Júnior, whom it credits with 28 goals and 16 assists in 66 matches. Lautaro scored 30 goals in 55 matches and won Serie A and the Coppa Italia. Dembélé, the 2025 winner, scored 26 goals in 51 matches and won five trophies, among them the Champions League and Ligue 1.

First-timers, veterans and absentees

Seven players received their first nomination, according to the official site on 9 September 2026: Cubarsí, Cucurella, Ferran Torres, Willian Pacho, Gabriel Magalhães, Upamecano and Quiñones. Pacho became the first Ecuadorian nominee; Quiñones, Mexico's top scorer at the 2026 World Cup, the second Mexican.

With the list of 8 September 2026, Messi, at 39 years and 76 days, became the oldest outfield player nominated in the twenty-first century, and his nominations now span 20 years, from his first in 2006 to this one in 2026, according to the official site. He had 17 nominations before it; the record, up to that list, belonged to Cristiano Ronaldo, with 18, from 2004 to 2022. Messi's eight Ballons d'Or up to the 2025 edition are a record, according to the AP.

The average age of the 30 was 29 years and two months, and Lamine Yamal and Cubarsí were the only teenagers, according to the official site on 10 September 2026. Benzema, Cristiano Ronaldo and Modrić, all past winners of the award, were left out, according to the AP. There is no goalkeeper among the 30: according to the AP on 8 September 2026, Lev Yashin, the 1963 winner, was the only goalkeeper to have won it, and that record will stand through the 2026 edition.

The other nine lists

There are ten lists and 110 places, according to the official site: the Ballon d'Or, 30 and 30; the Kopa Trophy for young players, 10 for men and 5 for women; Goalkeeper of the Year, 10 and 5; Coach of the Year, 5 and 5; Club of the Year, 5 and 5. The top-scorer trophies and the Sócrates Award are presented without a list of nominees.

Aitana Bonmatí, winner in 2023, 2024 and 2025, was left off the women's list after missing most of the season through injury, according to the AP. The official page for the 30 has 6 Spaniards and 8 Barcelona players, counting Mapi León and Putellas, listed as Barcelona/London City Lionesses. Lorena, registered on the official profile with the Kansas City Current, is also among the nominees for best goalkeeper, according to Terra.

The Club of the Year nominees are Arsenal, Bayern, Bodø/Glimt, Flamengo and PSG. For Flamengo, the official site lists the Libertadores, the Brasileirão and the Campeonato Carioca, and on 9 September 2026 it recalled the Libertadores final in Lima: a 1-0 win over Palmeiras, with a goal from Danilo, the club's fourth Libertadores. The nominated coaches are Mikel Arteta, Luis de la Fuente, Unai Emery, Vincent Kompany and Luis Enrique, four of them Spanish. For the Kopa Trophy, Lamine Yamal received his third nomination, having won it in 2024 and 2025.

London, 70 years after Blackpool

The trophy was created in 1956 by France Football, and the first winner was the Englishman Stanley Matthews of Blackpool; according to the official site, the choice of England honours him. From 2010 to 2015 the ceremony was held in Zurich, when FIFA co-organised the award, and from 2019 to 2025 at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. The 2025 ceremony took place on 22 September; the 2026 one was set for late October, a date similar to those of 2022, 2023 and 2024, and the official site attributed the choice to the calendar and to the FIFA international window from 21 September to 6 October 2026.

The venue was named in a news agency report: Italpress reported on 8 September 2026 that the ceremony would be held at the London Palladium Theatre, the award's first time there. On the morning of the same day, Sporting News wrote that the organisers had not yet announced the venue. According to the official calendar, the 70th men's Ballon d'Or and the eighth women's were scheduled to be presented on 26 October 2026 in London. On the page consulted on 11 September 2026, the official site counted 69 ceremonies held since the first edition, in 1956.