Seven of Koooora’s 15 editors put Lamine Yamal first. That was enough to carry him clear of Harry Kane in an in-house Ballon d’Or vote published on 23 October 2026, three days before the real trophy is handed out at the London Palladium.
The Arabic-language outlet, one of the biggest football platforms in the Middle East and North Africa, borrowed the top end of the actual award’s scoring scale, 15 points for a first-place vote, 12 for second, 10 for third, and asked each editor to name a top three. The tally:
- Lamine Yamal (Barcelona): 195 points
- Harry Kane (Bayern Munich): 162 points
- Kylian Mbappé (Real Madrid): 116 points
- Lionel Messi (Inter Miami): 45 points
- Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (PSG): 22 points
- Fabián Ruiz (PSG): 15 points
Kane picked up more second-place support than anyone else on the panel, which carried him clear of Mbappé. The Real Madrid forward’s points came from being named across all three ranks rather than stacking up top votes.
How the Koooora panel compares
The real Ballon d’Or is decided by 100 journalists, one from each of the top 100 FIFA-ranked nations. Each voter ranks ten players from the 30-man shortlist on a 15-12-10-8-7-5-4-3-2-1 scale, with first-place votes used as the tiebreaker. Koooora’s exercise followed the same top-three weighting but stopped there, framing the result as a snapshot of expert opinion in the Arab press rather than a prediction.
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The Koooora verdict sits broadly in line with where the market has moved. Bookmakers have Kane as a narrow favourite with Yamal pressing him hard, with Kane priced at 13/8 and Yamal at 9/4 going into the final weekend. Mbappé is at 7/2.
Kane carries a 61-goal club campaign for Bayern Munich and a Bundesliga and domestic cup double into the vote, as laid out in SI’s rundown of the favourites. Yamal is pushed by Barcelona’s La Liga form and a run of standout performances for Spain over the past year.
Ten PSG players on the shortlist
PSG dominate the official shortlist with ten of the 30 nominees, led by defending champion Ousmane Dembélé. He did not appear in Koooora’s top six.
The ceremony itself takes place at the London Palladium on Monday 26 October, with coverage starting at 8pm local time. It is the first time in the award’s 70-year history that it has left Paris, a move chosen to honour inaugural winner Stanley Matthews of England.
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