The Athletic editor’s Ballon d'Or picks: is your favorite included?

The Winner of Ballon d'Or will be announced tonight, The Athletic editors choose their favourites.

Burke: Mohamed Salah

This may be pro-Premier League bias, but players in England’s top flight seem to be at a significant disadvantage compared to their peers around continental Europe. The Premier League is the highest-quality domestic league in the world, with every team (bar the three relegated sides last season) at least good enough to hold their own in European competition.

For example, Tottenham Hotspur finished 17th out of 20 in the 2024-25 Premier League yet won the Europa League. Wolverhampton Wanderers, who finished one place above them, had three regular Brazil internationals in their starting XI. Manchester United, who finished 15th, faced Spurs in that Europa League final and have a whole first-team squad littered with expensive internationals. No other league in the world is at a standard anything like that.

For Salah to have dominated the Premier League in the way he did, scoring 29 times and providing 18 assists, is historic. Liverpool losing to the eventual winners, PSG, only via a penalty shootout in the Champions League’s knockout phase shouldn’t hurt his overwhelmingly strong case.

Anka: It’s still probably Dembele

To think like an Oscar voter for a moment, this season was too early to crown Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal, despite his obvious brilliance. I can imagine voters being reluctant to hand the award over to a teenager still at the start of his career. Salah was exceptional in a Liverpool team that easily won the Premier League, but the nature of that dominance may have left some voters cold.

Vitinha and Fabian Ruiz of PSG and Barcelona pair Pedri and Raphinha are outside bets tonight, despite brilliant contributions to their teams. Scott McTominay was also terrific last season (I would once again like to apologise for downplaying his talents and misdiagnosing his positive influence on a team), but Napoli’s lack of European football means fewer people got to witness his excellence.

Raghuraman: Dembele is still my answer

For all the reasons mentioned above. If PSG had won the Club World Cup too, rather than losing 3-0 to Chelsea in the final, there would be few arguments for anybody else.

Raphinha, who delivered 34 goals and 22 assists in all competitions for Barcelona, has a definitive case. Along with Yamal, Pedri and manager Hansi Flick, he has played a substantial role in putting Barcelona back among the game’s elite.

Vitinha and Pedri, the engines of their respective sides, are worthy candidates, as is Salah, who broke records for fun in the Premier League. But Liverpool’s defeat to PSG on penalties in the Champions League’s round of 16 and, weirdly enough, their dominance in the most competitive league in the world seem to have broken his case. Shout-outs to Kane (41 goals and 13 assists in 51 club matches) and Mbappe (43 and four in 58), too.

Stafford-Bloor: If we ignore the convention that the winning candidate has to have won the Champions League, then it should be Salah. 

A tally of 47 Premier League goal involvements will likely never be bettered. As a side note, Salah, who turned 33 just after the season finished, was understandably assumed to be beyond his career’s peak, so his resurgence is every bit as dramatic as Dembele’s and worth just as much in reward.

Add in other factors, such as the value of his contribution during Arne Slot’s first season in charge at Liverpool, easing the post-Jurgen Klopp transition, and the higher quality of opponent he faced week-to-week in England, and his claim is probably stronger.

Corrigan: Dembele would be a deserving winner and he has a good redemption-type story. 

He came through a really tough time at Barcelona, when the club’s hierarchy tried to force him to leave on their terms and the local media often unfairly maligned his name.

Goalscoring players are often favoured but midfield playmakers are overlooked in the voting for these types of individual awards. The most important player for PSG last season was Vitinha, who made them tick with his constant movement and involvement on and off the ball. Pedri, similarly, is unlikely to get as many votes tonight as Barca colleagues Yamal and Raphinha, but is arguably more important to their team in most games.

Jones: Salah was exceptional for Liverpool 

But complaints of, ‘If he had won the Champions League, he would be the favourite,’ do have a ring of, ‘If my grandma had wheels, she’d be a bicycle’.

If we want to talk about an alternative to Dembele, I would point to Vitinha. Fans could spend an entire game watching only him and not be disappointed. PSG’s whole forward line is superb, but he is the one who keeps the engine running.