No early phone call
The Ballon d’Or will be handed out on Monday night at the London Palladium, with Thierry Henry and Kate Scott hosting, and the winner may be as much in the dark as everyone else. Pascal Ferre, the former head of the award at France Football, told RMC on Sunday that he does not believe this year’s winner has been warned.
Speaking on the station’s Anais Matin show, Ferre said that since 2024 the laureates are no longer informed before the ceremony. Every nominee arrives in the room on equal terms, which means nobody can raise their arms a few seconds ahead of the rest. The rules changed, he explained, after the Messi and Ronaldo years, so that the name could be kept hidden until the last moment.
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How the secret is kept
His own method was simple. “A well-kept secret is one shared with as few people as possible,” he said, according to RMC, and he added that he used to leave fake rankings lying around the France Football newsroom to feed social media chatter. He estimated that no more than five people currently know the name.
The field, and a vote for Yamal
Ousmane Dembele defends the title from last year, but the competition looks heavy. Kylian Mbappe, Harry Kane and Lamine Yamal, who won the World Cup in the summer, are all in the mix, along with Paris Saint-Germain players who lifted the Champions League again.
Asked who would take it, Ferre said he would have voted for Yamal, whom he described as one of the few players still able to invent football in 2026. He was cooler on Mbappe, arguing that the France captain has not won a single title despite playing for two very strong sides, France and Real Madrid.
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