Harry Kane beat Kylian Mbappe to the Ballon d’Or by just 28 points, the smallest margin of victory in almost a decade.

The England and Bayern Munich striker Kane was the odds-on favourite to win football’s top individual honour and outlasted a late surge from Mbappe. In doing so he became the first Briton since Michael Owen in 2001 to take the prize.

He was crowned at a glitzy ceremony staged at the London Palladium last week, with Alexia Putellas picking up the women’s honour.

The voting totals were not revealed on the day of the honour, but have now been released and show just how competitive the award really was.

The 100 voting journalists elected by France Football handed the Briton a points total of 1055, which beat second-placed Mbappe by a remarkably fine margin of 28 points.

Lamine Yamal crossed the line third, 174 points back from Kane with a total of 881.

Mbappe’s second-place finish is still his career best finish in the Ballon d’Or voting. His previous high was a third-place finish in 2023. Per L’Equipe, three of the voting journalists did not even name the Real Madrid striker in their top ten finishers.

Kane’s is the tightest winning margin since Lionel Messi’s 686 points bested Virgil van Dijk’s 679 seven years ago.

The women’s ranking was not quite so competitive. Putellas, crowned for her work with Barcelona, has since joined WSL upstarts London City Lionesses and pipped Ewa Pajor by a wider margin of 86 points, decided by 50 journalists.

Here are the Ballon d’Or top ten rankings in full...

Lucky winners: Harry Kane and Alexia Putellas

PA