The Ballon d'Or 2026 nominees have been confirmed, with 30 players shortlisted for the men's award and another 30 for the women's prize. Below are both complete lists from UEFA's official announcement on 8 September, checked on 16 October ahead of awards night. These are nominations, not the final rankings or a prediction of the winners.

Men's Ballon d'Or 2026: all 30 nominees

The names follow the organiser's published shortlist order. Their position here does not indicate voting points.

  • Jude Bellingham
  • Pau Cubarsí
  • Marc Cucurella
  • Ousmane Dembélé
  • Luis Díaz
  • Bruno Fernandes
  • Gabriel
  • Erling Haaland
  • Achraf Hakimi
  • Harry Kane
  • Khvicha Kvaratskhelia
  • Lamine Yamal
  • Sadio Mané
  • Marquinhos
  • Lautaro Martínez
  • Kylian Mbappé
  • Nuno Mendes
  • Lionel Messi
  • João Neves
  • Michael Olise
  • Willian Pacho
  • Julián Quiñones
  • Declan Rice
  • Rodri
  • Fabián Ruiz
  • William Saliba
  • Ferran Torres
  • Dayot Upamecano
  • Vinícius Júnior
  • Vitinha

Women's Ballon d'Or 2026: all 30 nominees

  • Selma Bacha
  • Barbra Banda
  • Esmee Brugts
  • Klara Bühl
  • Mariona Caldentey
  • Scarlett Camberos
  • Kerstin Casparij
  • Temwa Chawinga
  • Cata Coll
  • Melchie Dumornay
  • Caroline Graham Hansen
  • Alex Greenwood
  • Patri Guijarro
  • Pernille Harder
  • Yui Hasegawa
  • Rose Lavelle
  • Mapi León
  • Lorena
  • Melvine Malard
  • Manaka Matsukubo
  • Vivianne Miedema
  • Ewa Pajor
  • Clàudia Pina
  • Alexia Putellas
  • Wendie Renard
  • Alessia Russo
  • Khadija Shaw
  • Momoko Tanikawa
  • Caroline Weir
  • Tessa Wullaert

Which Premier League players are nominated?

The Premier League's nomination announcement identifies five current league players on the main men's list: Arsenal's Gabriel, Declan Rice and William Saliba, Manchester City's Erling Haaland and Manchester United's Bruno Fernandes. That is a useful distinction from counting everybody who represented an English club during the assessed campaign. The same announcement identifies Rodri and Marc Cucurella as former Premier League players following their summer moves.

Arsenal's three nominees give the club representation in central defence and midfield rather than only in attack. Haaland and Fernandes bring different profiles to the list: a centre-forward and a creative midfielder. Their nominations should therefore not be read as a single goalscoring table. Supporters comparing candidates need to separate the role each player performed from the final judgement made by the award's jury.

Why PSG and Bayern feature prominently

Paris Saint-Germain's announcement counts ten nominees for the men's Ballon d'Or, including Ferran Torres. The club describes that as a record and links the recognition to its second consecutive Champions League title. The group spans defenders, midfielders and forwards. It includes Ousmane Dembélé, Achraf Hakimi, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Vitinha, but the size of PSG's contingent is not evidence that one of them has already won.

Bayern Munich have four men's nominees: Harry Kane, Michael Olise, Luis Díaz and Dayot Upamecano. In its announcement dated 8 September, Bayern also confirms Klara Bühl, Pernille Harder and Momoko Tanikawa on the women's shortlist. The club's recognition therefore extends across both main individual awards, rather than being limited to Kane's scoring campaign.

Bayern's separate nominations for Lennart Karl in the young-player category and Vincent Kompany in the coaching category illustrate an important counting issue. A club's total nominations across the evening are not the same as its number of nominees for the main Ballon d'Or. Keeping those categories separate avoids adding a coach or a young-player nominee to the 30-player senior list by mistake.

How the nominees become a final ranking

The organiser's voting guide, published on 7 October, says the men's jury draws one specialist journalist from each of the top 100 countries in the relevant FIFA rankings. The women's award uses the top 50. The applicable ranking is the one in force when the nominee lists were released on 8 September.

Each juror selects ten players from the relevant 30-player shortlist and orders them by preference. Those selections receive 15, 12, 10, 8, 7, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 point respectively. The highest combined total determines the winner. If players finish level, first-place votes decide the tie; further ties move to second-place votes, then third-place votes and onwards.

This is why a popular fan prediction is not an official result. The announcement establishes who is eligible for that ballot, while the voting produces the eventual order. SportsGround's separate Ballon d'Or criteria guide explains the assessment behind those selections.

Are the other awards part of these lists?

No. The ceremony also recognises young talent, goalkeepers, coaches and clubs in distinct categories. The organiser's guide to the other honours explains that the young-talent awards use votes from former Ballon d'Or winners. They are not simply the youngest players' positions in the main award rearranged into another table.

The striker awards also follow a different principle: the organiser describes them as statistical prizes based on official goals for club and country across the season. The Sócrates Award recognises humanitarian and social work away from the pitch. A nomination or success in one of these areas should not be presented as a win in the main men's or women's Ballon d'Or.

When will the Ballon d'Or winners be announced?

The ceremony is scheduled for Monday 26 October 2026 at the London Palladium. The official venue announcement explains that the London edition marks the award's 70th anniversary and honours its first recipient, Stanley Matthews. The nomination date and the ceremony date are therefore different: the shortlist was released in September, while the winners are to be revealed in October.

The published evening timetable puts the main ceremony at 8pm to 10pm UK time (GMT), with the red carpet running from 6pm to 7.40pm. It also schedules the release of positions 30 to 11 during the afternoon, without giving a precise start time for that portion. Check the organiser's timetable close to the event for changes; the red carpet is not the start of the awards themselves. Our ceremony date, time and venue guide covers the separate logistical details.

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