Champions League title – The annual Ballon d’Or ceremony that crowns the best male and female players in football will make history this year when it moves from its traditional Paris home to London in October. Co-organizers France Football magazine and UEFA announced on Thursday that the venue change has been made to mark the 70th anniversary of the first award won by England great Stanley Matthews.

London is also the home city of England’s record scorer Harry Kane and the Arsenal team that won its first Premier League title in 22 years and plays for a first Champions League title against Paris Saint-Germain on Saturday. Kane scored 61 goals in 51 games in an extraordinary season for German champions Bayern Munich. That career-best total includes 14 in the Champions League, where Bayern were defeated by PSG in the semi-finals, as well as five more for England in the World Cup qualifying group.

The men’s Ballon d’Or was won by Ousmane Dembele in Paris last year after PSG won their first Champions League title. The Ballon d’Or is coming to London. ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง A tribute to English footballer Stanley Matthews, the first winner in the history of the Ballon d’Or 70 years ago.

All details on https://t. co/Nr7sHS7cSv ๐Ÿ‘#ballondor pic.

twitter. com/kZ73BgTjaq โ€” Ballon d’Or (@ballondor) May 28, 2026 โ€œWhat I have just experienced is extraordinary, I don’t have words for it, what happened with PSG. I’m feeling a little stressed, it’s not easy to win this trophy, and to have it presented to me by Ronaldinho.

Should. ” The football legend is extraordinary,โ€ Dembele said after winning the award last year. This year, Dembele scored 19 in 39 games for PSG and started only 11 games in their Ligue 1 title campaign.

He has seven goals before facing Arsenal in the Champions League, including a crucial goal against Bayern, although he missed five of France’s six World Cup qualifying games due to injury. Etana Bonamati, winner of the last three Women’s Ballon d’Or awards, missed most of the season due to injury, returning at the end of Barcelona’s four-win season that includes another Champions League title last Saturday against OL Lyon. Ballon d’Or voters are a global panel of journalists who choose their top 10 from a shortlist of 30 players presented by France Football, L’Equipe newspaper and UEFA.

(with agency input).