England players nominated for 2026 Ballon d'Or awards

England will be well represented at the 2026 Ballon d’Or Ceremony later this year, with nominations for the 70th edition of the prestigious awards released on Tuesday.

Collated and organised by France Football magazine, the Ballon d’Or will celebrate the great achievements in the world of football from across the 2025-26 season, and this year the ceremony will be staged in London on Monday 26 October.

Having been hosted in Paris since its start, and at the Théâtre du Châtelet since 2019, the ceremony will be held outside of the French capital for the first time this year – as a tribute to its inaugural winner from 1956, Sir Stanley Matthews.

And this year’s ceremony will see a number of English players hoping to land an honour across various award categories, following their on-pitch performances for both club and country.

In the men’s Ballon d’Or award category, England have three players on the 30-strong shortlist for the 2026 title, which was won last year by France and Paris Saint-Germain’s Ousmane Dembélé.

England captain Harry Kane is on the shortlist for a seventh time in his career, after a goal-laden season with Bayern Munich and England who finished third at the FIFA World Cup 2026 earlier this summer.

He's joined in the running for the award by Jude Bellingham, on the back of his seven-goals at the World Cup 2026 in what is his fourth consecutive nomination for the Ballon d'Or. He previously finished in third in 2024. 

And there’s also a spot in the shortlist for Declan Rice, who won the Premier League title with Arsenal as well as being a mainstay in the England team across the season.

The Lionesses are also recognised among the nominees for the women’s Ballon d’Or award, now going into its seventh year, with two players appearing on the shortlist of 30 in the shape of Alex Greenwood and Alessia Russo.

England ‘keeper Hannah Hampton is also nominated for the Women’s Goalkeeper of the Year Award, which she won last year.

Now that the nominees are announced, an international jury of specialised journalists will cast their votes.

The panel consists of one representative per country from the top 100 nations in the FIFA Men's World Ranking and the top 50 in the Women's World Ranking.

Each voter will select their top choices based on three established criteria: individual and decisive performance, collective achievements and trophies won, and class and fair play on and off the pitch.

Using these metrics, each voting journalist selects and ranks ten players from the shortlist, assigning 15 points for their first choice, down to a single point for their tenth.

The accumulated points will determine who takes home the prestigious trophies at the ceremony on 26 October.

Good luck to all of our nominees!