Kine Edges Out Mbappé by 28 Votes

France Football magazine revealed that English striker Harry Kane won the Ballon d’Or award for the world’s best player by the smallest margin between the winner and the runner-up since the current voting system was adopted, edging out French forward Kylian Mbappé by just 28 points. The magazine published the details of the voting results. Kane, who plays for German club Bayern Munich, became the first Englishman to win the award since Michael Owen in 2001. He received 40 first-place votes out of 100 members of the judging panel, accumulating 1,055 points. Mbappé, captain of the French national team and forward for Spanish club Real Madrid, received 23 first-place votes and finished the voting with 1,027 points. The previous smallest margin was 41 points, when Spain’s Rodri, then playing for English club Manchester City and currently for Barcelona, beat Brazil’s Vinicius Junior, Real Madrid’s forward, by 41 points in the 2024 edition. Last season, Paris Saint-Germain forward Ousmane Dembélé scored 1,380 points, finishing 321 points ahead of Barcelona star Lamine Yamal. Yamal, who won the World Cup title with Spain this summer, finished third in the Ballon d’Or voting with 881 points, trailing Kane by 174 points. The Ballon d’Or is awarded based on votes from journalists, with one journalist from each of the top 100 men’s and top 50 women’s nations in the FIFA World Rankings.