Team success, the ‘Bundesliga tax’ and the World Cup: three takeaways from the 2026 Ballon d’Or

There was plenty to learn from this year’s ceremony in London as Harry Kane took home the top honor It was an awards show that, as Michael Owen admitted, could have been a phone call – as it was in 2001 when he won. A quarter-century on, a ballroom full of footballers, power brokers, a gravity-defying dancer and a handful of heckling rabble-rousers plodded through a three-hour slog of a ceremony. Aside from a reminder to viewers at home just how precious our free time is, what could be