Ousmane Dembele deservedly won the Ballon d'Or 2025 in Paris last night, following a stellar season for club side Paris Saint Germain.
He was the pre-event favourite to win the award for the first time and did just that, with the Frenchman presented the award by Ronaldinho in Paris.
Dembele finished ahead of Barcelona teenager Lamine Yamal. the 18-year-old was close to becoming the youngest ever Ballon d’Or winner after enjoying a breakout season as Barcelona impressed domestically and in Europe.
His PSG teammate Vitinha was third, with Egypt star Mohamed Salah coming fourth, to stretch the wait for the first Premier League winner since Cristiano Ronaldo in 2008 for yet another year.
Cole Palmer in eighth was the highest-ranked English player in the voting, with Harry Kane perhaps unfortunate to only be 13th having scored more than 40 goals for Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich.
In his first time making the 30-man shortlist, Scott McTominay came 18th in the voting. That was two places behind Vinicius Jr, who narrowly missed out on winning the Ballon d’Or last year to Rodri.
Jude Bellingham and Alexis Mac Allister both finished just outside the top 20, as did Fabian Ruiz despite winning the Champions League with PSG.
By his lofty standards it was a quiet season for Erling Haaland, even if he did still manage 34 goals in all competitions. Manchester City’s struggles in the Premier League and Champions League mean the striker has to settle for 26th in the Ballon d’Or race this year.
Top 30 men, Ballon d’Or 2025 rankings:
30th: Michael Olise
29th: Florian Wirtz
28th: Virgil van Dijk
27th: Declan Rice
26th: Erling Haaland
25th: Denzel Dumfries
24th: Fabian Ruiz
23rd: Jude Bellingham
22nd: Alexis Mac Allister
21st: Serhou Guirassy
20th: Lautaro Martinez
19th: Joao Neves
18th: Scott McTominay
17th: Robert Lewandowski
16th: Vinicius Jr
15th: Viktor Gyokeres
14th: Desire Doue
13th: Harry Kane
12th: Khvicha Kvaratskhelia
11th: Pedri
10th: Nuno Mendes
9th: Gianluigi Donnarumma
8th: Cole Palmer
7th: Kylian Mbappe
6th: Achraf Hakimi
5th: Raphinha
4th: Mohamed Salah
3rd: Vitinha
2nd: Lamine Yamal
1st: Ousmane Dembele
