The race for the 2026 Ballon d'Or is heating up as the announcement of the winner draws closer next October. Each candidate is clinging to his chances and building the case for why he deserves football's most prestigious individual award.
Players are not the only ones in the fight. Clubs have started backing their own candidates, with Real Madrid throwing their weight behind Kylian Mbappé, Barcelona pushing for Lamine Yamal and Bayern Munich championing Harry Kane. Paris Saint-Germain, meanwhile, are behind the duo of Ousmane Dembélé and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia.
Tempers are fraying. Some clubs have started aiming criticism at media outlets they accuse of failing to treat every candidate with the same neutrality, pointing to the uneven coverage each player receives and the amount of space handed to him across various platforms.
Paris Saint-Germain played their part here, granting France Football, the magazine responsible for the award, an interview with the trio of Fabián Ruiz, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Ousmane Dembélé as part of its coverage of the Ballon d'Or candidates. Then the issue was published, and things escalated.
According to the "Foot Mercato" network, citing French newspaper "Le Parisien", the Parisian club's officials were unhappy to discover that Kylian Mbappé, the current Real Madrid man, had the biggest presence in the magazine's content despite the fact that the magazine had interviewed three PSG players.
That sparked real discontent inside Paris Saint-Germain and drew fire towards France Football, the body that runs the Ballon d'Or. With Dembélé and Kvaratskhelia locked in fierce competition with Mbappé and the rest of the candidates, the atmosphere around the award is only getting hotter before the winner is announced on 26 October in the English capital, London.
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