Harry Kane prevailed against the world’s elite at the 2026 Ballon d’Or. The FC Bayern striker won the Golden Ball by a razor-thin margin over Kylian Mbappé and Lamine Yamal. Now, Vincent Garcia, editor-in-chief of France Football, has offered some interesting insights into the voting process. In particular, he criticized Paris Saint-Germain’s strategy and explained what mistake he believes the French club made.

Although PSG won the Champions League again last season, not a single player from the top French club made it into the top five of the Ballon d’Or voting.

Khvicha Kvaratskhelia finished in sixth place, while last year’s winner, Ousmane Dembélé, came in seventh. Fabián Ruiz rounded out the Parisian trio in the top ten, finishing in tenth place.

For Garcia, the comparatively poor showing is also linked to the club’s communication in the run-up to the vote.

Ballon d’Or chief criticizes PSG’s strategy

In an interview with the French sports newspaper L’Équipe, Garcia explained that, in his view, PSG did not follow a clear strategy in supporting its candidates. “I think PSG’s communication wasn’t entirely clear. First they pushed their three players, then only two,” criticized the France Football editor-in-chief.

In his view, it would have made more sense to focus public attention on a single candidate. “It’s not my job—I’m not in marketing—but they would have been better off highlighting a single player. I would have backed one player—and that would have been Ballon d’Or winner Ousmane Dembélé,” Garcia explained.

The Frenchman suspects that the PSG players may have taken votes away from one another during the voting.

However, there’s no way to prove whether a different strategy would actually have led to a better result.

Mbappé had a strong campaign—but Kane won anyway

While Garcia was critical of PSG’s approach, he had words of explicit praise for Real Madrid and Kylian Mbappé. “I think Mbappé ran a really good campaign. He presented strong arguments and effectively conveyed his message to the public—including those eligible to vote,” the editor-in-chief emphasized.

In the end, however, even this campaign wasn’t enough to knock Harry Kane off the top spot.

The Bayern striker had deliberately refrained from an aggressive campaign in the run-up to the awards ceremony, choosing instead to let his on-field performances speak for themselves.

With numerous goals and the double of the league title and the DFB Cup, the 33-year-old amassed enough credentials to prevail against the international competition.

Garcia had already hinted earlier just how close the race actually was. According to him, the point gap between Kane and Mbappé was even smaller than the 41 points that separated Rodri and Vinícius Júnior in the 2024 vote.

The exact results and the individual voting patterns of the jurors are set to be published this coming Saturday in the next issue of France Football.

Then we’ll see just how close Kane’s historic Ballon d’Or victory actually was.

This article was translated into English by AI. You can read the original version here https://fcbinside.de/2026/10/27/ballon-dor-boss-enthuellt-dieser-fehler-half-kane-beim-triumph/.