Every Ballon d'Or Winner, 1956 to 2025: The Official List, With Club and Country
All 69 men's awards from the award's own register, with club and country, plus the most wins, the missing 2020, and when the 2026 winner is announced.
There have been 69 men’s Ballon d’Or awards in 70 years, from Stanley Matthews of Blackpool in 1956 to Ousmane Dembélé of Paris Saint-Germain in 2025. There is no 1956–2025 winner for 2020, the only blank year in the award’s history. Lionel Messi has won eight, more than anyone; Cristiano Ronaldo has five. The 2026 award has not been made yet: the organisers have confirmed the winners will be revealed on Monday 26 October 2026, at the award’s 70th edition and — for the first time — in London.
Last checked: 22 September 2026.
Every row in the table below, including the club and country columns, comes from the award’s own published register at ballondor.com rather than from a secondary list. Where that register disagrees with what is commonly repeated, we have followed the register and said so.
The complete list of men’s Ballon d’Or winners
| Year | Winner | Club | Country |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Ousmane Dembélé | Paris Saint-Germain | France |
| 2024 | Rodri | Manchester City | Spain |
| 2023 | Lionel Messi | Paris Saint-Germain / Inter Miami | Argentina |
| 2022 | Karim Benzema | Real Madrid | France |
| 2021 | Lionel Messi | Paris Saint-Germain | Argentina |
| 2020 | No Ballon d’Or | — | — |
| 2019 | Lionel Messi | FC Barcelona | Argentina |
| 2018 | Luka Modrić | Real Madrid | Croatia |
| 2017 | Cristiano Ronaldo | Real Madrid | Portugal |
| 2016 | Cristiano Ronaldo | Real Madrid | Portugal |
| 2015 | Lionel Messi | FC Barcelona | Argentina |
| 2014 | Cristiano Ronaldo | Real Madrid | Portugal |
| 2013 | Cristiano Ronaldo | Real Madrid | Portugal |
| 2012 | Lionel Messi | FC Barcelona | Argentina |
| 2011 | Lionel Messi | FC Barcelona | Argentina |
| 2010 | Lionel Messi | FC Barcelona | Argentina |
| 2009 | Lionel Messi | FC Barcelona | Argentina |
| 2008 | Cristiano Ronaldo | Manchester United | Portugal |
| 2007 | Kaká | AC Milan | Brazil |
| 2006 | Fabio Cannavaro | Juventus / Real Madrid | Italy |
| 2005 | Ronaldinho | FC Barcelona | Brazil |
| 2004 | Andriy Shevchenko | AC Milan | Ukraine |
| 2003 | Pavel Nedvěd | Juventus | Czech Republic |
| 2002 | Ronaldo | Inter Milan / Real Madrid | Brazil |
| 2001 | Michael Owen | Liverpool | England |
| 2000 | Luís Figo | FC Barcelona / Real Madrid | Portugal |
| 1999 | Rivaldo | FC Barcelona | Brazil |
| 1998 | Zinedine Zidane | Juventus | France |
| 1997 | Ronaldo | FC Barcelona / Inter Milan | Brazil |
| 1996 | Matthias Sammer | Borussia Dortmund | Germany |
| 1995 | George Weah | Paris Saint-Germain / AC Milan | Liberia |
| 1994 | Hristo Stoichkov | FC Barcelona | Bulgaria |
| 1993 | Roberto Baggio | Juventus | Italy |
| 1992 | Marco van Basten | AC Milan | Netherlands |
| 1991 | Jean-Pierre Papin | Marseille | France |
| 1990 | Lothar Matthäus | Inter Milan | Germany |
| 1989 | Marco van Basten | AC Milan | Netherlands |
| 1988 | Marco van Basten | AC Milan | Netherlands |
| 1987 | Ruud Gullit | AC Milan | Netherlands |
| 1986 | Igor Belanov | Dynamo Kyiv | USSR |
| 1985 | Michel Platini | Juventus | France |
| 1984 | Michel Platini | Juventus | France |
| 1983 | Michel Platini | Juventus | France |
| 1982 | Paolo Rossi | Juventus | Italy |
| 1981 | Karl-Heinz Rummenigge | Bayern Munich | West Germany |
| 1980 | Karl-Heinz Rummenigge | Bayern Munich | West Germany |
| 1979 | Kevin Keegan | Hamburg | England |
| 1978 | Kevin Keegan | Hamburg | England |
| 1977 | Allan Simonsen | Borussia Mönchengladbach | Denmark |
| 1976 | Franz Beckenbauer | Bayern Munich | West Germany |
| 1975 | Oleg Blokhin | Dynamo Kyiv | USSR |
| 1974 | Johan Cruyff | FC Barcelona | Netherlands |
| 1973 | Johan Cruyff | Ajax Amsterdam / FC Barcelona | Netherlands |
| 1972 | Franz Beckenbauer | Bayern Munich | West Germany |
| 1971 | Johan Cruyff | Ajax Amsterdam | Netherlands |
| 1970 | Gerd Müller | Bayern Munich | West Germany |
| 1969 | Gianni Rivera | AC Milan | Italy |
| 1968 | George Best | Manchester United | Northern Ireland |
| 1967 | Flórián Albert | Ferencváros | Hungary |
| 1966 | Bobby Charlton | Manchester United | England |
| 1965 | Eusébio | Benfica | Portugal |
| 1964 | Denis Law | Manchester United | Scotland |
| 1963 | Lev Yashin | Dynamo Moscow | USSR |
| 1962 | Josef Masopust | Dukla Prague | Czechoslovakia |
| 1961 | Omar Sívori | Juventus | Italy |
| 1960 | Luis Suárez | FC Barcelona | Spain |
| 1959 | Alfredo Di Stéfano | Real Madrid | Spain |
| 1958 | Raymond Kopa | Real Madrid | France |
| 1957 | Alfredo Di Stéfano | Real Madrid | Spain |
| 1956 | Stanley Matthews | Blackpool | England |
Source: Ballon d’Or — Complete list of all winners and the award’s all-rankings register, both read 22 September 2026.
Most wins
| Wins | Player | Years |
|---|---|---|
| 8 | Lionel Messi | 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2019, 2021, 2023 |
| 5 | Cristiano Ronaldo | 2008, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017 |
| 3 | Johan Cruyff | 1971, 1973, 1974 |
| 3 | Michel Platini | 1983, 1984, 1985 |
| 3 | Marco van Basten | 1988, 1989, 1992 |
| 2 | Alfredo Di Stéfano | 1957, 1959 |
| 2 | Franz Beckenbauer | 1972, 1976 |
| 2 | Kevin Keegan | 1978, 1979 |
| 2 | Karl-Heinz Rummenigge | 1980, 1981 |
| 2 | Ronaldo | 1997, 2002 |
Two consecutive-run records fall out of the same list. Michel Platini won three in a row (1983–85), and Lionel Messi won four in a row (2009–12) — the longest unbroken run in the award’s history, and the one that the “most in a row” question is usually reaching for.
Between them, Messi and Ronaldo won 13 of the 15 awards from 2008 to 2023, with only Luka Modrić in 2018 and Karim Benzema in 2022 breaking the sequence. The two awards since — Rodri in 2024 and Ousmane Dembélé in 2025 — are the first back-to-back years without either since 2006–07.
By country, and by club
Counted from the register, with West Germany and Germany listed separately because that is how the register lists them, and the USSR kept as the entity the register names.
| Country | Wins |
|---|---|
| France | 8 |
| Argentina | 8 |
| Portugal | 7 |
| Netherlands | 7 |
| Brazil | 5 |
| England | 5 |
| Italy | 5 |
| West Germany | 5 |
| Spain | 4 |
| USSR | 3 |
| Germany | 2 |
| Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechoslovakia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Liberia, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Ukraine | 1 each |
On clubs, the register lists two names for a winner who moved mid-season, which is why the club count needs stating carefully rather than presented as a single number.
| Club | Seasons as a winner’s only club | Shared seasons | Total mentions |
|---|---|---|---|
| FC Barcelona | 11 | 3 | 14 |
| Real Madrid | 9 | 3 | 12 |
| Juventus | 8 | 1 | 9 |
| AC Milan | 7 | 1 | 8 |
| Bayern Munich | 5 | 0 | 5 |
| Manchester United | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| Paris Saint-Germain | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| Inter Milan | 1 | 2 | 3 |
So FC Barcelona leads on either measure, which is not what most winners lists imply. The register records seven seasons where the winner is credited to two clubs, and all seven are listed in full here rather than assigned to one club:
| Season | Winner | Clubs as the register lists them |
|---|---|---|
| 1973 | Johan Cruyff | Ajax Amsterdam / FC Barcelona |
| 1995 | George Weah | Paris Saint-Germain / AC Milan |
| 1997 | Ronaldo | FC Barcelona / Inter Milan |
| 2000 | Luís Figo | FC Barcelona / Real Madrid |
| 2002 | Ronaldo | Inter Milan / Real Madrid |
| 2006 | Fabio Cannavaro | Juventus / Real Madrid |
| 2023 | Lionel Messi | Paris Saint-Germain / Inter Miami |
Any club tally that reports a single number without saying how it handles those seven is guessing at one of two different answers.
Why the list before 1995 is not the same competition
This is the part that makes a bare winners list misleading, and none of the pages ranking for this query explains it.
Look down the country column from 1956 to 1994. Every winner in those 39 years holds a European nationality in the official register. In 1995, George Weah of Liberia wins it at Paris Saint-Germain and AC Milan, and after that non-European winners appear regularly: Ronaldo in 1997, Rivaldo in 1999, Ronaldo again in 2002, Ronaldinho in 2005, Kaká in 2007, then Messi eight times.
That is not a coincidence or a change in who was good. 1995 is the year eligibility opened beyond European players, and the register shows the effect immediately and permanently.
One entry in the early list is worth pausing on because it looks like an exception and is not. Omar Sívori, 1961, is listed by the register with the country “Italy” — he was born in Argentina and played for Italy after naturalisation. The register records nationality as it stood, and by that record 1961 is an Italian win.
Two practical consequences for anyone using this list:
- “Most Ballons d’Or” is not a like-for-like ranking across eras. Pelé and Diego Maradona never appear on it. Neither was eligible for most or all of their careers.
- Comparing a 1960s winner with a 2020s winner compares different candidate pools, different numbers of voters and, since the 2020s, a different time period — see below.
Our page on why Neymar never won the Ballon d’Or works through the modern version of the same problem: what the award is actually measuring, and why a player can dominate a decade of highlight reels without ever topping the ranking.
How the award is decided now
The organisers publish the current method, and three details of it are frequently got wrong.
| What the organisers state | |
|---|---|
| Who votes | 100 international jurors, “one per eligible nation” |
| What they vote on | “the performances of players throughout the season” |
| How they vote | “Each voter ranks their top 10 candidates, with points distributed on a descending scale” |
| Nominees | 30 men, 30 women |
| Published ranking | Top 10 |
| Criteria, in order | 1. Individual performance. 2. Team achievements. 3. Class and fair play. |
The season point is the one most often missed. The award is decided on a season, not a calendar year, which is why an autumn ceremony assesses the campaign that finished in the summer rather than the one just starting.
The criteria order matters too, because it is the answer to the perennial “but his team won nothing” argument. The organisers put individual performance first and team achievements second, and describe them as “three essential pillars, in order of importance” — while adding that the award “also values the impact a player has on their team’s success”.
Source: Ballon d’Or — About the Ballon d’Or, read 22 September 2026.
2020: the only missing year
The register does not leave 2020 blank or skip it. Its entry for that year reads, in full: “No Ballon d’Or” and “AWARD CANCELLED DUE TO COVID-19”. The same blank appears in the women’s list. That is why the award has been presented 69 times in the 70 years since 1956, and why 2026 is billed as the 70th edition rather than the 71st.
If you are checking someone’s total against a list that runs continuously from 1956 to 2025 without a gap, that list is wrong by one year.
The 2026 award: 26 October, and out of Paris for the first time
As of 22 September 2026 the 2026 Ballon d’Or has not been awarded. The organisers’ own announcement, on their About page:
“Ballon D’Or 2026: Join Us In London On 26 October. The winners of the two Ballon d’Or awards, in its 70th edition, will be revealed on Monday 26 October at a ceremony that leaves Paris for London and England.”
Two things follow. First, any page telling you who won the 2026 Ballon d’Or before that date is reporting a prediction, a betting market or a leak, not a result. Second, the nominee lists are already published: 30 men and 30 women, alongside nominees for the Young Talent, Goalkeeper, Coach, Striker and Club of the Year awards.
The full-tournament context for several of those nominees is covered on our page on how the FIFA World Cup 2026 format works, which carries the completed tournament’s results and bracket.
The Women’s Ballon d’Or, 2018 to 2025
The women’s award is newer and shorter, and the register is explicit that it starts in 2018 — the year list it offers runs 2018 to 2025 and nothing earlier.
| Year | Winner | Club | Country |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Aitana Bonmatí | FC Barcelona | Spain |
| 2024 | Aitana Bonmatí | FC Barcelona | Spain |
| 2023 | Aitana Bonmatí | FC Barcelona | Spain |
| 2022 | Alexia Putellas | FC Barcelona | Spain |
| 2021 | Alexia Putellas | FC Barcelona | Spain |
| 2020 | No Ballon d’Or | — | — |
| 2019 | Megan Rapinoe | Seattle Reign FC | United States |
| 2018 | Ada Hegerberg | Olympique Lyonnais | Norway |
Four winners in seven awards, and five of the seven went to a Spanish player at FC Barcelona. Bonmatí’s three in a row from 2023 to 2025 is level with Michel Platini’s 1983–85 as the longest consecutive run in either award apart from Messi’s four.
The other trophies given on the same night
A Ballon d’Or ceremony is not one award. The register lists thirteen categories, and knowing them saves confusion when someone says a player “won a Ballon d’Or award”.
- Men’s Ballon d’Or and Women’s Ballon d’Or
- Men’s and Women’s Young Talent of the Year (the Kopa Trophy)
- Men’s and Women’s Goalkeeper of the Year (the Yashin Trophy)
- Men’s and Women’s Coach of the Year (the Cruyff Trophy)
- Men’s and Women’s Striker of the Year (the Gerd Müller Trophy)
- The Socrates Award
- Men’s Club of the Year and Women’s Club of the Year
Three of those are named after men who appear in the winners table above — Raymond Kopa (1958), Lev Yashin (1963), Johan Cruyff (1971, 1973, 1974) — and one after a winner who is in it once, Gerd Müller (1970).
What we could not source, and why it is not here
Two things a thorough page on this subject ought to address, which we could not confirm from a primary source on the day.
The 2010–2015 FIFA years. Between 2010 and 2015 the award ran jointly with FIFA. The official register lists those six years exactly like every other year, with no separate branding, no footnote and no distinction — Messi 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2015, Ronaldo 2013 and 2014. We attempted to confirm FIFA’s own account of that period and could not: fifa.com serves its content through a script-driven front end that returned no article text to us, and the URLs we tried for a FIFA awards history returned empty pages. So the honest statement is the one the register supports: on the official record those are ordinary Ballon d’Or wins, and any list that separates or discounts them is applying a distinction the awarding body does not.
Points totals and runners-up before the modern era. The all-rankings register publishes full top-30 rankings for recent years, but we have not attempted to reproduce historical vote tallies, which would need a source we could verify year by year.
Retroactive “if it had been global” lists. Several sites publish hypothetical alternative winners for the pre-1995 years. These are editorial exercises by publications, not awards, and they are not in the official register. We have left them out rather than blur the line between a trophy someone holds and a trophy someone might have held.
Frequently asked questions
Who has won the most Ballons d’Or?
Lionel Messi, with eight: 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2019, 2021 and 2023. Cristiano Ronaldo has five (2008, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017). Three players have three each: Johan Cruyff, Michel Platini and Marco van Basten. Five have two: Alfredo Di Stéfano, Franz Beckenbauer, Kevin Keegan, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and Ronaldo of Brazil.
Why is there no winner for 2020?
The official register’s entry for 2020 reads “No Ballon d’Or” and “AWARD CANCELLED DUE TO COVID-19”, for both the men’s and women’s awards. It is the only year since 1956 with no winner, which is why the award has had 69 ceremonies in 70 years.
When is the 2026 Ballon d’Or announced?
Monday 26 October 2026. The organisers state that the winners of the two Ballon d’Or awards, in the award’s 70th edition, will be revealed at a ceremony that “leaves Paris for London and England” — the first time the ceremony has been held outside France.
How is the Ballon d’Or actually voted for?
By 100 international jurors, one journalist per eligible nation, voting on performances across the season rather than the calendar year. Each voter ranks their top 10 candidates and points are distributed on a descending scale. There are 30 nominees for the men’s award and 30 for the women’s, and the final published ranking runs to the top 10.
What are the judging criteria, in order?
Three, and the order is stated: first individual performance, second team achievements, third class combined with fair play. The organisers describe these as the award’s “three essential pillars, in order of importance”.
Which club has provided the most winners?
FC Barcelona. Counting every season in which the register names a club against the winner, Barcelona appears 14 times and Real Madrid 12. Counting only seasons where the winner is credited to that club alone, it is Barcelona 11 and Real Madrid 9 — Barcelona leads on either measure.
Who was the first non-European winner?
George Weah of Liberia, in 1995, at Paris Saint-Germain and AC Milan. In the official register every winner from 1956 to 1994 is listed with a European nationality, and Weah is the first who is not — 1995 is the year the award opened beyond European players.
Who has won the Women’s Ballon d’Or?
Four players since it began in 2018: Ada Hegerberg (2018), Megan Rapinoe (2019), Alexia Putellas (2021 and 2022) and Aitana Bonmatí (2023, 2024 and 2025). There was no award in 2020. Every winner except Hegerberg and Rapinoe won it at FC Barcelona.
Everything else we hold on the game — the completed 2026 World Cup and the record of the players who dominated this award’s modern era — is collected in our football coverage.
Sources
- Ballon d’Or — Complete list of all winners (read 22 September 2026)
- Ballon d’Or — All rankings, men’s and women’s registers by year, which supply the club and country columns (read 22 September 2026)
- Ballon d’Or — About the Ballon d’Or, for the voting method, criteria, jury size, nominee counts and the 2026 ceremony date (read 22 September 2026)