In a few weeks, on October 26, the 2026 Ballon d’Or will be awarded. There are quite a few contenders for the France Football prize, and normally that kind of uncertainty means one thing: there are a lot of players who could win it. Rodri, Lamine Yamal and Kvaratskhelia are among them, but each of those candidacies has its own small gaps. That is also why Kylian Mbappé is being talked about as a possible winner: he remains the top scorer in the last Champions League, with 16 goals, and led France to the World Cup semi-finals. Precisely because the situation is so unclear, and therefore still open, Real Madrid have started campaigning for their No. 10. The club’s social media channels have begun mentioning the award, while Mbappé himself gave an interview in which he said, “If I could vote, I’d vote for myself,” and naturally his initiative was not entirely spontaneous. There is nothing particularly strange or wrong about it, after all: the France Football prize — much like the Oscars, you might say — is also won this way, by influencing the jury, which, let’s remember, is made up of journalists, through interviews and public appearances.
The point is that Real Madrid have spent the last two years essentially wiping the Ballon d’Or from their agenda. We all remember why: at the 2024 edition, the one won by Rodri, there was a sharp break between Madrid and France Football over Vinícius Júnior’s failure to win, despite being the pre-award favourite. The reaction from Spain and Madrid was furious and poisonous, the entire delegation from Florentino Pérez’s club stayed away from the ceremony, and a few weeks later the president had some less-than-flattering things to say — to put it mildly — about the journalists from Namibia, Uganda and Albania who, through their votes, had helped determine Rodri’s victory over Vinícius. Now that hostility seems to have disappeared, not because Real Madrid suddenly care about France Football or the journalists selected by the French magazine, but because the Ballon d’Or is a major marketing opportunity. We saw it last year with Ousmane Dembélé, whose commercial appeal grew exponentially after he won the award.
Mbappé’s case, of course, is rather different: we are talking about a footballer and a brand on an entirely different scale, already established globally, so an eventual Ballon d’Or would be more a coronation than a boost to his popularity. But Real Madrid are an industry that lives and grows in precisely this way, through rising off-field revenues and the recognisability of their stars. Having another Ballon d’Or winner in the squad, four years after Karim Benzema’s last victory, would matter to everyone: to the club, to its president and, naturally, to Mbappé himself.