Ballon d’Or Winners by Country Across the EU

Key Takeaways

• France ranks first in the EU for men’s Ballon d’Or wins. The 8 wins came from 6 different French players instead of one star player.
• The Netherlands and Portugal reached 7 Ballon d’Or wins each through a few repeat winners. Cristiano Ronaldo alone won the award 5 times.
• Germany and the Netherlands won almost all of their Ballon d’Or awards while the competition was open only to European players.
• The EU’s share of Ballon d’Or awards fell from 77% before 1995 to 47% after. This is because players from outside Europe could now win too.

EU Countries With the Most Ballon d’Or Wins

Stay tuned!

Learn something new about Germany every week and make informed decisions with confidence.

Stay tuned!

Learn something new about Germany every week and make informed decisions with confidence.

France Ranks First Among EU Countries for Ballon d’Or Winners

The Ballon d’Or (French for “golden ball”) is football‘s best-known award for a single player. The award goes to the best men’s player each year.

France ranks first in the EU for Ballon d’Or winners by country. Six different French players won France’s 8 awards. Michel Platini won 3 in a row from 1983 to 1985, and the other five won once each.

The French winners span almost 70 years. Raymond Kopa won in 1958, and Ousmane Dembélé won in 2025. Because France kept producing new top players, France’s total does not depend on one player’s career.

By comparison, the Netherlands and Portugal each have 7 Ballon d’Or wins from only 3 different winners. Because only one player wins each year, a star who stays the best for several seasons can win the award again and again. Both countries had star players who did this:

• Johan Cruyff (Netherlands): 3 wins, 1971 to 1974
• Marco van Basten (Netherlands): 3 wins, 1988 to 1992
• Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal): 5 wins, 2008 to 2017

EU Players Won Fewer Ballon d’Or Awards Once Non-Europeans Could Compete

EU players won 44 of the 69 men’s Ballon d’Or awards between 1956 and 2025. Most of those wins came before 1995. The award started as the European Footballer of the Year, so only European players could win it.

During those European-only years, EU players won 30 of the 39 Ballon d’Or awards. That equals 77% of the awards from 1956 to 1994.

In 1995, the Ballon d’Or changed its rules so that more players could win. From that year, players from outside Europe could win too, as long as they played for a European football club. In 2007, the award opened to players at any football club in the world.

With more players able to win, the EU’s share of the Ballon d’Or fell to 47% from 1995 to 2025. EU players now had to beat star players from South America and Africa too.

Lionel Messi shows how the rule change cut the share of Ballon d’Or awards won by EU players. The Argentine player alone won 8 of the 30 awards from 1995 to 2025.

The 1995 rule change affected the top EU countries in different ways:

The Netherlands and Germany won almost all of their Ballon d’Or awards before 1995. At that time, Dutch and German players only had to beat other Europeans. Portugal won most of its awards after 1995, when Portuguese players had to beat the best players from the whole world.

Unlike the Netherlands, Germany and Portugal, France won at least 3 Ballon d’Or awards both before and after 1995. France is the only EU country to do this. France’s 3 wins after 1995 came from 3 different players: Zinedine Zidane (1998), Karim Benzema (2022), and Ousmane Dembélé (2025).

The EU ranking of Ballon d’Or winners tells two stories. It shows which countries won when only Europeans could compete, and which still win now that anyone can.