As the most prestigious individual award in global football, the Ballon d’Or garners massive interest every year as publication France Football honours the best player in the world.
The process is almost never smooth and often produces contentious results, but regardless, the winning player sees their profile boosted immeasurably, not least as the winner is voted for by journalists and experts from across the world.
Adding to the award’s prestige is the recent dominance by two of the greatest players to ever grace a pitch. Just two players not named Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo have won the Ballon d’Or since 2008, a stretch of 15 years where the pair of superstars won all but two of the trophies.
Now, with both Messi and Ronaldo unlikely to win this year’s award on account of them playing in leagues outside of Europe with lower prestige, the 2024 winner will gain a leg up towards becoming established as one of the greatest of the coming generation. Additionally, with the two icons ushered out of the picture, the race for this latest award is as hotly contested as any in recent memory.
With the club season over and a defining summer of international football on the way, The Sporting News takes you through the likely potential winners and discusses each player’s candidacy for the most coveted individual award the sport has to offer.
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Below are some of the leading candidates to win the men’s Ballon d’Or in 2024. The Sporting News will update this page until the award is presented.
Real Madrid talisman Vinicius Jr. has become a household name throughout the last few years, continuing to see his star shine brighter each and every season. The Brazilian has suffered during several instances of racial abuse in Spain but continues to perform on the biggest stage.
While Vinicius has loads of competition for goals and assists in a stacked Real Madrid squad he remains the unquestioned attacking leader of Europe’s most successful club. In the Champions League final, Vinicius was decisive on the biggest stage yet again, sealing a 2-0 victory over Borussia Dortmund with his 24th goal of the season, two years on from scoring the only goal to down Liverpool in the showpiece.
Still, Vinicius has a lot to prove on the international stage, where these awards are often won or lost. The 23-year-old has a minuscule three career goals for Brazil in his 28 caps, and the Selecao are in far from convincing form heading into this summer’s Copa America. Right now, Vinicius is the leader for this award, but a disappointing tournament in the United States could harm his chances significantly.
Jude Bellingham has yet to make Real Madrid truly his own, but the 20-year-old England international has done more towards that end than any first-year player in the Spanish capital since Cristiano Ronaldo. He has also accomplished something Ronaldo couldn’t: winning the Champions League in his first Madrid season, and against his former club Borussia Dortmund no less.
The young midfielder is a generational talent, playing a deeper role at the German club at a world-class level until Carlo Ancelotti deployed him as a No. 10. It seemed ridiculous at the time given Bellingham’s exceptional skill level at his old No. 6/No. 8 position, but now with 23 goals and 13 assists on the season across all competitions, it has been proven a masterstroke.
Bellingham is also poised to play a major part for Euro favorites England this csummer, and a starring role in a title-winning push would put him in pole position to win the award at an outlandishly young age — he would miss the youngest-ever record by days should he emerge victorious in October. Yet a slower finish to the club season plus a possible Euro disappointment with England could very easily scupper his chances if others have a more successful summer on the international stage.
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Largely considered by many to be the best player in the world right now, Kylian Mbappe will have the public popularity contest on his side at every Ballon d’Or vote in the coming years. Unfortunately for Mbappe, he finds himself behind others as the club season concludes thanks to a surprisingly quiet finish to his PSG career. Mbappe was utterly invisible as PSG flamed out in the Champions League at the hands of Borussia Dortmund, overshadowed by the likes of Jadon Sancho and his teammate Ousmane Dembele on the UCL stage.
In general, Mbappe has been poor since the calendar turned to 2024. Twenty-three of his 44 club goals have come since January 1, but few of those were scored in truly meaningful games — Mbappe bagged eight goals in the Coupe de France, for example, but came up empty in the final as PSG scraped by Lyon 2-1. He scored a Ligue 1 hat-trick against Montpellier plus a brace against Lorient, but he was benched for games against Lille and Lyon, while failing to score against Monaco, Reims, and surprisingly strong Brest. Above all, his multiple no-shows in the Champions League were the most damaging.
In order for Mbappe to reignite his Ballon d’Or chances in 2024, the Frenchman must log not just a quality showing at the Euros this summer, but a starring role. Anything short of winning the tournament’s best player award would probably see others beat him to the Ballon d’Or as well.
Nobody in top flight European football scored as many goals this season as Harry Kane did for Bayern Munich, bagging an incredible 44 goals in 45 games throughout his first season in Germany. Unfortunately, like Mbappe, very little of that exceptional haul came in moments that put forth a Ballon d’Or-winning resume.
Most damaging to Kane’s CV was the fact that Bayern failed to win a single trophy this season, extending the cult criticism that the England star is somehow “cursed”. He scored just one goal against the eventual league champions Bayer Leverkusen as the team collected just a single point from those two games, and his only goal in the two Champions League semifinal legs against Real Madrid came from the penalty spot, one of nine penalties he scored across all competitions this season.
While Kane offers oodles of goals, as he has his whole career, he would need to lead England to European victory to have a shot at this award, and probably needs to do so while outshining Jude Bellingham in the process, which would be a monumental task given how Bellingham will almost certainly need to contribute heavily for England to lift the trophy.
Nobody in Germany had a better season than Bayer Leverkusen playmaker Florian Wirtz, whose stardom led his club to the precipice of an historic unbeaten season. Die Werkself won a memorable domestic double behind the magic of Xabi Alonso, who led the club to multiple come-from-behind results en route to an invincible domestic campaign.
Twenty-one-year-old Wirtz, in his first full season since returning from an ACL tear, was at the very heart of that season-long brilliance. Playing a No. 10 role with exceptional freedom to move about the pitch, Wirtz scored 18 goals and assisted 20 more, keeping his levels up all season long. He’s now primed to be the focal point of Germany’s attack at a European Championship on home soil, and is a real contender for the tournament’s Golden Ball award.
Unfortunately for Wirtz, two things are working against him here. First, he’s not at a big enough club to gain enough attention necessary for the Ballon d’Or, even amidst Leverkusen’s widely popular run. Second, the Europa League final defeat dealt an unfair but palpable hit to his global perception, as Atalanta completely smothered Leverkusen’s attacking unit, ruining their shot at a fully unbeaten treble.
Wirtz could be a legitimate contender for the Ballon d’Or but would likely need to do something historic at the Euros for a real shot at it. If he does manage to put his name firmly in the conversation, it would be fully deserved.
Like Wirtz, Phil Foden pulled the strings for a historic domestic achievement, leading Manchester City to a fourth consecutive Premier League title, something never done before in the English league’s history. Foden would win FWA Footballer of the Year in the process, logging 27 goals and 12 assists across all competitions.
Also like Wirtz, however, Foden has a few unfair factors working against him. First is that while Man City won the league with a truly emphatic title-worthy run-in, their relative failures in both the Champions League and two domestic cup competitions are a disappointment with the club coming off the truly historic treble of last season. It’s not terribly fair to compare the two, but unfortunately that’s how perception works.
Secondly, Foden has enormous competition for star power and talent within his own squad. Erling Haaland had a down year by his standards and still won the Golden Boot award for the Premier League’s top scorer, while the likes of Rodri and Kevin De Bruyne continue to get headlines anytime they step on the pitch by way of their own individual brilliance, even though the latter’s powers seem to be on the wane. That in turn means this City team could just be becoming Foden’s team. Expect him to be in these conversations frequently over the coming years.
Nobody in the history of global football has won this award more times than defending Ballon d’Or winner Lionel Messi. The 36-year-old Argentine has won eight of these bad boys, most recently last year, making him the second-oldest winner in its history only behind 41-year-old Stanley Matthews back in 1956.
Now with MLS club Inter Miami, Messi has continued to dominate on a new stage, challenging for the league lead in goals and assists even while earning significant rest amidst a litany of fitness issues.
Unfortunately, it will be an uphill challenge for Messi to win his ninth award. After years of restricting this award to just European players, France Football opened the Ballon d’Or up to any player at any club around the globe back in 2007. Still, the perception of MLS as a lower-tier competition compared to those in Europe will almost surely irreparably harm his chances at winning this award, even if he drags Argentina to another Copa America title.
Technically, Messi became the first player at a non-European club to win the award last year, but the achievements that saw him come top of the vote (such as winning the 2022 World Cup) came before he signed for Inter Miami. If anyone can become the first man to earn the prize while playing completely outside European club football, it’s Messi, but it feels even out of his spectacular reach at this stage. Unless he does something never seen before in Copa America history this summer, his run is almost surely over.
These awards are often weighted heavily towards international football as opposed to club performances, and with both Euro 2024 and the Copa America still to come, those two competitions will likely have a massive influence on who wins the Ballon d’Or.
Yet there are some insights we can take from the end of the club season and the run-up to those competitions. Brazil are as vulnerable as they’ve ever been heading into the Copa America, which hurts Vinicius’s chances greatly. If the Selecao disappoint in the United States, his hopes could evaporate. Meanwhile, the favorites for the Copa America are defending World Cup champions Argentina, but Messi would need a Herculean effort this summer to offset the global perception of Major League Soccer. It’s unlikely he wins another award.
Looking at the Euros, England are favorites, but even if they emerge victorious, will it be Kane or Bellingham to lead them to glory? And should they falter, will Mbappe do enough with France to offset his late-season disappearing act at PSG? If hosts Germany win, could Wirtz or anyone else do enough to find themselves under legitimate consideration?
At the end of the day, those with the most to gain at the Euros have a tall task ahead of them, while the most likely stars face a long climb up the standings. Bellingham is the best remaining favorite who can claim both a strong club season and a strong chance of starring this summer, and should come out with a historic win.
Prediction: Jude Bellingham to win 2024 Ballon d’Or
The 2024 Ballon d’Or gala is due to be held on Monday, October 28, 2024 at the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris, France.
The ceremony is scheduled to start at 8 p.m. local time (2 p.m. ET).
Below is a list of all players who have won the Ballon d’Or more than once.
A reminder, the award was also only eligible to European-born players until 1995 when that rule was changed, opening up the award to all players contracted European clubs. From 2007, any player in any league in the world could be nominated.
| Player | Nation | Awards | Years Won |
| Lionel Messi | Argentina | 8 | 2009, ’10, ’11, ’12, ’15, ’19, ’21, ’23 |
| Cristiano Ronaldo | Portugal | 5 | 2008, ’13, ’14, ’16, ’17 |
| Michel Platini | France | 3 | 1983, ’84, ’85 |
| Johan Cruyff | Netherlands | 3 | 1971, ’73, ’74 |
| Marco van Basten | Netherlands | 3 | 1988, ’89, ’92 |
| Franz Beckenbauer | Germany | 2 | 1972, ’76 |
| Alfredo Di Stefano | Spain | 2 | 1957, ’59 |
| Kevin Keegan | England | 2 | 1978, ’79 |
| Ronaldo Nazario | Brazil | 2 | 1997, ’02 |
| Karl-Heinz Rummenigge | Germany | 2 | 1989, ’81 |
