Ballon d’Or: List Of Winners From 1956 – 2024

Player A doesn’t deserve it, Player B deserve it more, is the usual song or uproar we often battle with from the fans, and we’ve often time seen the most prestigious award in world football raise a lot of questions anytime the award is been dished out to a particular player.

More so, how has greatness been measured in football? through statistics, trophies, and personal accolades, all of these are often been the benchmarks for measuring greatness.

Ballon d’Or can also be seen as one of the personal accolades as the case may be for football stars who at a point in their career have done impressively well playing for their clubs.

It’s no news that football is a universal sport which has the ability to bring millions of people together, even when they ain’t best of friends, it attracts lots of aficionados, investors, and administrators who are always ready to invest their money in a sport that guarantees millions of dollars if well managed.

After all is said and done, the footballers usually have their own time reward in the form of an award to appreciate what they’ve actually done in the course of the season by playing for their club

This article was first published on May 25 2020 and updated on March 13 2024

In this piece, we will look into the inception of the Ballon d’Or itself, the present, and past winners.

The brain behind the game’s most prestigious individual honour the ‘Ballon d’Or‘ was conceived by Sports Writer Gabriel Hanot, for the male players deemed to have performed the best over the year and the winner are been chosen based on voting by football journalists since its inception 1956 to 2007.

However, in 2007 coaches and national team captains were also given the right to vote whom they deemed to be the best over the year.

Evidently, the award was strictly meant for players from Europe, and is widely known as the European Footballer of the Year award, but in 1995, the organizers were gracious enough to expand the coast to include all players from other regions that have been active in European club football.

As such the award became global in 2007 with all the professional footballers irrespective of nationality or their professional club, this decision now means the award effectively became the World Player of the Year award, although it was still a separate award for the FIFA World player of the year award.

The first non-European player who first laid his hands on the prestigious award was George Weah in 1995.

The year the rules of eligibility were changed for the first time, while the first European player to win the inaugural award was a certain Blackpool player Stanley Matthews in 1956.

The long list of awards began with the first five players like Alfredo Di Stefano who won it in 1957, Raymond Kopa who also won it in 1958, and then again Alfredo Di Stefano won it in 1959.

And in 1960 Luis Suarez a Barcelona and Spanish player 1960, basically those were the first set of footballers that won the prestigious award.

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Since the inception of the award, only three players have won the Ballon d’Or thrice, Johan Cruyff in 1971, 1973, and 1974, Marco Van Basten in 1988, 1989, and 1992, Michel Platini in 1983, 1984, and 1985.

Amidst all of the past and present winners, Italian teams AC Milan and Juventus are the only teams that have produced the most recipients of the Ballon d’Or eight in total.

The players from Germany who won in 1972, 1981, and Dutch in 1988 were the only ones to take all three top spots in a year.

Italian clubs won it in 1988-1990 achieving the same feat as the German, including two years solely made up of AC Milan players in 1988, and 1989.

All of these records were so unique until the Spanish club took over the reign and experienced dominance in 2009, 2012, 2015, and 2016, and in 2010 Barcelona became the second team with three top players.

The Portuguese teams are among the countries with seven winners apiece.

For the Ballon d’Or and the FIFA World Player of the Year award, it was snatched up by Ronaldinho in 2005 having done impressively well with Barcelona both in the league and the Champions League.

Fabio Cannavaro also won it in 2006 being the first defender to win it after a brilliant outing at the World Cup, Kaka also won it in 2007 following his mind-blowing performances for Milan in the league and of course in the Champions League, then followed by Ronaldo in 2008 and Lionel Messi in 2009.

Lionel Messi of Barcelona has won the award a record six times, followed by Cristiano Ronaldo who has also won five, winning one at Manchester United while the remaining four were during his stint with Spanish giant Real Madrid.

The two Spanish clubs Barcelona and Real Madrid are the leading teams with twelve and eleven winners respectively between 2010 to 2015.

Subsequently, the award was merged with a similar one the FIFA World Player of the Year award to create the FIFA Ballon d’Or award which was awarded to the best male player before FIFA and France Football decided to put an end to the merger agreement.

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After 2011, UEFA created the UEFA Best Player for Europe award to maintain the tradition of the original Ballon d’Or specifically to honour a football player from Europe and those who did well playing in Europe

With this award, Zinedine Zidane, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho, and Kaka have all won the FIFA World Cup, the European Cup, the UEFA Champions League, and the Ballon d’Or during their successful careers.

Meanwhile, over the years the award has shown to be biased in favour of attacking players, which has increased over the years, and over time the award has gone to the more exclusive set of leagues and clubs, and prior to 1995 when George Weah the first non-European player to win it.

The top leagues had supplied the Ballon d’Or winners. England, Germany, Italy, and Spain have produced winners since 1995, but now the story has changed totally.

Ballon d’Or Winners 2000-2024

Ballon d’Or winners 1977-1999

Ballon d’Or Winner 1956-1976