Explainer · evergreen
How the Ballon d'Or is actually decided
In one line: Thirty nominees, one hundred journalists, three criteria and a points ladder: the machinery behind football's most argued individual prize.
Every autumn, football argues about the Ballon d'Or as if it were a verdict. It is not a verdict — it is a vote, with a defined electorate, a defined ballot and defined criteria. Knowing the machine does not end the argument, but it tells you exactly what kind of claim the result can support.
The electorate: one journalist per country
The award is presented by France Football, and since the 2022 reform the voting body is deliberately narrow: one journalist from each of the top 100 FIFA-ranked nations votes in the men's award (the women's Ballon d'Or uses 50 journalists from the top 50 ranked nations). Not players, not coaches, not fans — a press jury, one voice per nation, weighted by nothing but its own ballot.
The ballot: a ranked top ten
The editorial teams of France Football and L'Équipe assemble a 30-player shortlist from the previous season's performances. Each juror then ranks their top ten in order, and the positions carry points on a descending ladder — 15 for first, then 12, 10, 8, 7, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1. Most points wins. The shape of this ladder matters: a player who is everyone's second choice can lose to one who is a plurality's first choice, which is why “best season” and “wins the Ballon d'Or” are not synonyms.
The three criteria — and the one that decides it
Jurors are instructed to weigh three things: individual performance (decisive and impressive), team achievements (trophies won), and class and fair play. In practice, the second criterion does the heavy lifting: in a World Cup or Champions League year, the trophy almost always anchors the winner's case, because a hundred journalists from a hundred countries converge most reliably on silverware. Since 2022 the award also runs on a season (roughly August to July), not a calendar year — a quiet but real change in what the prize measures.
The satellite trophies
The same gala distributes the related awards, each with its own jury: the Kopa Trophy for the best under-21 (voted by former Ballon d'Or winners), the Yashin Trophy for the best goalkeeper, and the women's awards. Different electorates, different shortlists — worth remembering when a result in one category surprises you.
What the prize can and cannot claim
The honest framing: the Ballon d'Or is the aggregated opinion of a hundred journalists about a season, filtered through a points ladder and anchored by trophies. It is a legitimate record of consensus — and consensus is exactly what it is. Anyone presenting it as an objective measurement of the world's best footballer is selling certainty the ballot never promised. The desk's living 2026 Ballon d'Or question applies precisely this reading.
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