Imagine opening the official Ballon d’Or website and discovering that your favorite footballer has won the biggest individual award in football.
Now imagine someone else opening the same website and seeing a completely different winner.
That’s pretty much what happened on Monday, October 26.
Hours before the 2026 Ballon d’Or ceremony, the award’s official website accidentally published articles naming three different players as winners.
Harry Kane, Kylian Mbappé and Lamine Yamal.
All three. Same trophy. Same night.
Three winners. One trophy.
It started when an article announcing Harry Kane as the 2026 Ballon d’Or winner began circulating online.
Naturally, football fans thought the results had leaked.
But then people discovered similar articles celebrating Real Madrid’s Kylian Mbappé and Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal as winners.
Screenshots spread across social media, and the confusion quickly turned into an online talking point.
Was it a leak? Had someone accidentally revealed the winner?
Not exactly.
The organizers later explained that articles had been prepared in advance for nominees and that some were mistakenly published before the ceremony.
The posts were subsequently removed.
So who actually won?
In the end, Harry Kane was crowned the 2026 Men’s Ballon d’Or winner, becoming the first English player to receive the award since Michael Owen in 2001.
Mbappé finished second, while Yamal took third place.
Yamal didn’t leave empty-handed, though. He won the Men’s Young Talent of the Year award.
And on the women’s side, Alexia Putellas claimed the Ballon d’Or.
So, no, three players didn’t actually win the same trophy.
But for a few confusing hours, the official website certainly made it look that way.
Football fans were already preparing for a night of debates.
The organizers accidentally gave them something else to argue about before the ceremony had even started.
The post The Ballon d’Or had three winners before the ceremony even started appeared first on La Nouvelle Tribune.
