The Ballon d'Or leaves Paris for London after seventy years

For the first time since 2019, the Ballon d’Or ceremony will leave Paris. The 2026 edition, the seventieth in the award’s history, will be held on October 26 at the London Palladium, in the British capital, breaking with the tradition that had tied the award ceremony to the Parisian Théâtre du Châtelet. On this news, the available dossier indicates a single source — France Football, the award’s organizer — and no further independent confirmations have been found regarding the event’s organizational details.

The choice of London is not incidental: the ceremony celebrates the award’s seventieth anniversary and pays tribute to Stanley Matthews, the English footballer who in 1956 became the very first winner of the Ballon d’Or. Bringing the award ceremony back to the country of the first winner, on the occasion of a round anniversary, is the rationale organizers have given for the geographic shift.

On the sporting front, the 2026 edition arrives with a protagonist aiming for a significant personal milestone: Ousmane Dembélé, the current men’s title holder, is aiming to become the eleventh man in the award’s history to win it more than once. It is a goal that places the French footballer in a very select category of players capable of reaching the top of the world’s best-known individual football award more than once.

Moving the ceremony outside Paris, after seven consecutive years at the Châtelet, also marks a symbolic shift for an award that has accompanied the history of football for seventy years: born with an Englishman as its first winner, it now returns, for the first round anniversary, to the country of that first triumph.

On October 26, at the London Palladium, it will be known whether Dembélé has managed to join the select group of footballers capable of winning the Ballon d’Or more than once.