A new study has ranked the 30 most successful players in the history of the prestigious Ballon d’Or award.

The Ballon d’Or, also known as the Golden Ball, is an annual prize presented by France Football to crown the best player in the world.

On Monday, the 2026 Ballon d’Or winner will be announced when the star-studded ceremony takes place in the London Palladium in London, England. Last year, France international and Paris Saint-Germain star Ousmane Dembele took home the award, and he is again in the running for this year’s prize.

Aside from Dembele, the likes of Lamine Yamal, Kylian Mbappe, Harry Kane and Vitinha are also among the favourites to win the Ballon d’Or. Ahead of Monday’s ceremony, a new study by Sports Illustrated has ranked the 30 most successful players in the history of the Ballon d’Or, via a method that normalises votes due to changes made to the award over the years.

SI stated: “Rather than adding up each player’s raw points total, their votes have been expressed as a proportion of the total score they could have achieved.”

One example given was that of Stanley Matthews, who won the award in 1956 with just 47 votes, which in modern-day terms would be nowhere near the podium.

SI added: “So, Matthews’s normalised score for 1956 is his actual tally (47) divided by the maximum based on that year’s system (80) multiplied by 100 so that we’re working with nice big numbers, which equates to 58.8. Normalised points = (total score ÷ best score possible) x 100.”

30th - 21st

Kicking off the Top 30 is former Real Madrid star and 2022 winner Karim Benzema, along with legendary figures such as Paolo Maldini, who was nominated 13 times during his illustrious career. One-time winners Rivaldo, Roberto Baggio, Lothar Matthaus, Ruud Gullit and Andriy Shevchenko also featured.

Meanwhile, one of this year’s hot favourites, Mbappe, ranked 22nd on the list, with a normalised points total of 168. According to the latest odds, the Real Madrid man is behind the likes of Yamal and Kane for the 2026 Ballon d’Or.

20th - 11th

In 20th place is Ronaldinho, a six-time nominee who won the award back in 2005, which earned him a normalised point total of 173 in the recent study.

Ahead of Ronaldinho, the likes of Gianni Rivera, Lev Yashin, Bobby Charlton, Thierry Henry and Raymond Kopa are next. After the previously mentioned big names, 1960 winner Luis Suarez is next, just below legends such as Kevin Keegan and Gerd Muller.

Brazilian icon Ronaldo Nazario, who won the award in 1997 and 2002, just missed out on the top 10.

10th-1st

We begin the top 10 with Dutch legend Marco van Basten, who took home the prestigious award three times, in 1988, 1989 and 1992. He was also nominated six times in total.

Above Van Basten are the likes of Alfredo Di Stefano, Zinedine Zidane, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, Eusebio, Johan Cruyff, Michel Platini and Franz Beckenbauer, with the German legend missing out on the final two places.

In second place is five-time winner Cristiano Ronaldo, who has been nominated in 18 editions. He also finished on the podium 12 times, giving him a total of 745 normalised points.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Lionel Messi is the most successful player in Ballon d’Or history, winning the award eight times, which scored him 894 normalised points in the study.