The Bayern Munich talisman has become the first Englishman to win the prestigious Ballon d'Or since Michael Owen in 2001.

He beat rivals Lamine Yamal and Kylian Mbappe to the award - after leading Bayern to a league and cup double as well as scoring six goals in England's best World Cup since 1966.

The prize also comes in a year in which Kane equalled the men's appearance record for his country, matching Peter Shilton's 125 appearances for the Three Lions against Czechia at Wembley earlier this month.

London-born Kane will be able to celebrate his victory in his hometown after the ceremony at the London Palladium.

The start of proceedings was delayed by 30 minutes after traffic in the capital stopped many guests from arriving on time.

Bayern Munich forward Kane was a popular winner in the capital and has followed in the footsteps of Stanley Matthews, Bobby Charlton, Kevin Keegan and Owen as a Ballon d’Or winner from England.

Kane received the 70th Ballon d’Or to enormous cheers and chants of ‘Harry’ inside the London Palladium, minutes after London City midfielder Alexia Putellas claimed the women’s prize for a third time.

This year’s award covers all football worldwide in the period between August 3, 2025 and July 19, 2026 – so for Kane’s purposes, the 2025-26 season with Bayern and England up to and including the end of the World Cup.

He scored 73 goals in 65 appearances for club and country between those dates, collecting three trophies with Bayern and reaching two major semi-finals.

Kane scored at least once in 47 of the 65 games he played, with five hat-tricks and 16 braces propelling him to a record better than a goal a game.

Four of those hat-tricks came as he won the Bundesliga Golden Boot with 36 goals in 31 games, almost double the scoring tally of nearest challenger Deniz Undav who notched 19 for Stuttgart.

Kane scored trebles against RB Leipzig, Hoffenheim, Stuttgart and Cologne. The Hoffenheim clash came amid a run of 11 goals in five matches, with doubles against Hamburg and Chelsea before that game and Werder Bremen and Pafos afterwards.

He remarkably added another hat-trick against Stuttgart as his side won the DFB-Pokal final 3-0. That took him to 10 goals in six appearances in that competition, with 14 in 13 Champions League games and one in the German Super Cup giving him 61 in 51 club fixtures.

He added another 12 in 14 England appearances – six in seven games at the World Cup, five in five qualifiers and one in a pair of pre-tournament friendlies.

For the first dozen years of Kane’s career, he was unable to convert his prolific goalscoring record into team silverware – only ending that drought with the 2025 Bundesliga title in his second season at Bayern, having been denied by Bayer Leverkusen in the first year after his move from Tottenham.

Having finally broken his duck, he helped Bayern get back to their dominant best last season with a league and cup double in addition to the Super Cup.

Bayern won 28 of their 34 Bundesliga fixtures, losing only once and finishing 16 points clear of runners-up Borussia Dortmund, and scored 17 goals including Kane’s 10 in their six-game run to DFB-Pokal success.

They also reached the semi-finals of the Champions League, losing to eventual champions Paris Saint-Germain despite Kane scoring in a classic 5-4 first-leg defeat and the subsequent 1-1 draw.

That tournament performance would of course be repeated at the World Cup, where Kane’s goals rescued England from group-stage embarrassment against the Democratic Republic of Congo and led them to the last four. He sat out what would have been the final chance to add to his Ballon d’Or case in the free-scoring 6-4 win over France in the third-place play-off.