2024 Ballon d’Or ceremony date confirmed: When are the awards and who’s going to win? | OneFootball

The 2024 Ballon d’Or is still months away but now the ceremony date is confirmed, already the debate over who deserves to win is hotting up.

When are the 2024 Ballon d’Or awards?

The 2024 Ballon d’Or awards ceremony will be held on Monday, October 28, at the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris, France. The ceremony is scheduled to begin at 8pm local time (7pm UK time).

This means that even if Jude Bellingham wins, Ronaldo’s record as the award’s youngest recipient (21 years and 92 days old) will stay intact.

Where can I watch the 2024 Ballon d’Or awards?

The Ballon d’Or awards ceremony will be streamed live for free on L’Equipe’s YouTube channel.

Who are the 2024 Ballon d’Or favourites?

Vinicius Jr

Vinicius Jr scored 24 goals across all competitions in 2023/24, enjoying his most productive season to date — especially when you add his 11 assists. The Brazilian’s form was a key factor in Real Madrid’s double success, winning La Liga with just one defeat in 38 games while also sealing their sixth Champions League title in 11 years. Just as he did against Liverpool in the 2022 Champions League final, Vinicius Jr got on the scoresheet as Los Blancos beat Borussia Dortmund 2-0 at Wembley.

There is a real groundswell around Vinicius Jr’s Ballon d’Or bid now, to the point where former Manchester United defender and current TNT Sports pundit Rio Ferdinand even declared he should be the winner of the award nine times in a single 31-second clip.

Vinicius Jr’s manager, Carlo Ancelotti, agrees with Ferdinand, declaring after the Champions League final: “Vini Jr deserves the Ballon d’Or. I’ve no doubts.”

Jude Bellingham

Jude Bellingham’s debut season at Real Madrid was nothing short of sensational. Still only 20 years old, the former Birmingham City wonderkid scored 19 La Liga goals to come third in the Golden Boot race, while registering 23 goals and 13 assists across all competitions.

The England international played as a centre-forward, attacking midfielder and on the wing but wherever Ancelotti put him, he delivered the goods time and again.

“It’s surprising. I don’t think anybody could have imagined his adaptation to this style of football, to this club,” Ancelotti said of Bellingham earlier this season. “He surprises every day, in every game. Not just us, he’s surprising everybody. [Bellingham] is a gift for football.

“His coach and his teammates are delighted with him, and the fans are delighted with him, but everybody is delighted to see a player with this potential and this positive image.”

Bellingham is undoubtedly Vinicius Jr’s closest challenger and his claim would be strengthened significantly if he were to help England win Euro 2024.

Toni Kroos

The third Real Madrid player among the favourites, this is Toni Kroos’ last chance to win the Ballon d’Or before he retires this summer. And in fairness, the German makes a very strong case.

Kroos was top of the pile among Real Madrid players for chances created (86), passes completed (3,082), pass accuracy (94.83%), final third passes completed (755), long passes completed (314) and touches (3,745) during the 2023/24 La Liga and Champions League campaigns combined. They’re frankly ridiculous statistics and a key reason not only why Real Madrid did the double, but also why Ancelotti doesn’t want the 34-year-old to retire.

“I’ve told him we are waiting for him to change his mind – we are waiting for you,” the Italian said at the weekend.

Kroos’ midfield partner in crime Luka Modric won the Ballon d’Or in 2018 after winning the Champions League and leading Croatia to the World Cup final. Germany host Euro 2024 this summer and should Kroos help Die Mannschaft to the title on home soil, well, it might be impossible to stop him from signing off with the biggest individual prize of all.

Kylian Mbappe

Technically, Kylian Mbappe is the fourth Real Madrid player on this list. Of course, it’ll be his achievements in 2023/24 for PSG and his exploits at Euro 2024 that will decide how he performs at the Ballon d’Or awards.

Mbappe was once again the top scorer in Ligue 1 with 27 goals in just 29 appearances as PSG won their 11th title in 13 years. That record extended to an incredible 44 goals in 48 games across all competitions.

France will be among the favourites at Euro 2024, especially after making the 2022 World Cup final, which was Mbappe’s second in as many attempts after lifting the trophy in 2018. Going all the way in Germany would certainly help his cause, although it feels more inevitable that Mbappe will win the 2025 version of the award.

Harry Kane

From the Squawka Comparison Matrix below, you can see that Harry Kane has one of the strongest statistical cases for the 2024 Ballon d’Or, alongside Toni Kroos. The Englishman enjoyed a remarkable debut season with Bayern Munich after joining from Tottenham Hotspur, hitting 44 goals and 12 assists in 45 appearances across all competitions, with his stunning 36 goals in 32 Bundesliga matches easily enough to seal the Golden Boot.

Kane fell just five goals short of Robert Lewandowski’s single-season Bundesliga scoring record set in 2020/21 and had he not missed a couple of games in May due to a back problem, he’d have stood a strong chance of breaking it.

What plays against Kane is he still remains trophyless, with Bayern Munich suffering a disastrous campaign and ending without silverware for the first time since 2011/12. If Kane can win Euro 2024 with England and repeat his 2018 World Cup Golden Boot-winning performance, then he might steal his way up the pecking order, but it feels like there’s just too much of a mountain to climb.

When was the Ballon d’Or established?

The brainchild of sports writer Gabriel Hanot, his vision of honouring those who have performed exceedingly well across the past year became reality in 1956 when Sir Stanley Matthews won the inaugural Ballon d’Or (or golden ball, in English).

Voted on primarily by journalists, until 1995 only European players were eligible for the prize. Liberia’s George Weah was the first non-European recipient, and he would dedicate his prize to his former AS Monaco coach Arsene Wenger.

For a while, the award merged with Fifa’s own annual prize before France Football ended that partnership.

Past Ballon d’Or winners:

Lionel Messi is once again the defending champion after picking up his eighth crown last year, fresh from finally lifting the World Cup with Argentina. In the process, he also became the first-ever active MLS player to win the Ballon d’Or.

Before that, Karim Benzema took the crown in 2022, the first award after a number of changes were made to the ceremony. Those changes included the award taking into account seasons (August to July), rather than years, meaning 2022 was handed out for 2021/22 and didn’t take into account any fast starts to 2022/23. That is why the 2022 World Cup was only taken into account for the 2023 award.

Other changes included only the top 100 countries in the men’s Fifa’s rankings having representatives for the vote, and the top 50 for the women’s.