Ballon d’Or 2023: when is the ceremony, nominees, odds and past winners as world’s best footballers make list

The nominees for football’s most prestigious individual awards – the Ballon d’Or and the Ballon d’Or Féminin – have been announced, with Lionel Messi and Aitana Bonmatí among the favourites after leading their respective countries to World Cup glory in the past 12 months.

Awarded by France Football magazine every year since 1956, when Blackpool’s Sir Stanley Matthews became the first player to be named the best in the world, the historic Ballon d’Or has become the trophy every player wants to win, and Messi will be looking to extend his record haul of seven wins when the ceremony takes place in Paris on 30 October.

Who has been nominated?

30 players have been nominated for both the men’s and women’s awards, with three England players and 12 Premier League players up against Messi for the men’s title and four members of the Lionesses squad who lost the recent World Cup final in the running for the women’s trophy.

The complete list of players nominated for the men’s award, in alphabetical order, is:

Julián Álvarez (Manchester City & Argentina); Nicolò Barella (Inter Milan & Italy); Karim Benzema (Al-Ittihad & France); Jude Bellingham (Real Madrid & England); Yassine Bounou (Al-Hilal & Morocco); Kevin de Bruyne (Manchester City & Belgium); Rúben Dias (Manchester City & Portugal); Antoine Griezmann (Atlético Madrid & France); Ilkay Gündoğan (Barcelona & Germany); Joško Gvardiol (Manchester City & Croatia); Erling Haaland (Manchester City & Norway); Harry Kane (Bayern Munich & England); Kim Min-Jae (Bayern Munich & South Korea); Randal Kolo Muani (Paris Saint-Germain & France); Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (Napoli & Georgia); Robert Lewandowski (Barcelona & Poland); Emiliano Martínez (Aston Villa & Argentina); Lautaro Martínez (Inter Milan & Argentina); Kylian Mbappé (Paris Saint-Germain & France); Lionel Messi (Inter Miami & Argentina); Luka Modrić (Real Madrid & Croatia); Jamal Musiala (Bayern Munich & Germany); Martin Ødegaard (Arsenal & Norway); André Onana (Manchester United & Cameroon); Victor Osimhen (Napoli & Nigeria); Rodri (Manchester City & Spain); Bukayo Saka (Arsenal & England); Mohamed Salah (Liverpool & Egypt); Bernardo Silva (Manchester City & Portugal); Vinícius Júnior (Real Madrid & Brazil).

The Ballon d’Or Féminin nominees are:

Aitana Bonmatí (Barcelona & Spain); Millie Bright (Chelsea & England); Linda Caicedo (Real Madrid & Colombia); Olga Carmona (Real Madrid & Spain); Rachel Daly (Aston Villa & England); Debinha (Kansas City Current & Brazil); Kadidiatou Diani (Lyon & France); Mary Earps (Manchester United & England); Patricia Guijarro (Barcelona & Spain); Yui Hasegawa (Manchester City & Japan); Amanda Ilstedt (Arsenal & Sweden); Sam Kerr (Chelsea & Australia); Mapi León (Barcelona & Spain); Katie McCabe (Arsenal & Republic of Ireland); Hinata Miyazawa (Manchester United & Japan); Lena Oberdorf (Wolfsburg & Germany); Asisat Oshoala (Barcelona & Nigeria); Ewa Pajor (Wolfsburg & Poland); Salma Paralluelo (Barcelona & Spain); Alexandra Popp (Wolfsburg & Germany); Hayley Raso (Real Madrid & Australia); Alba Redondo (Levante & Spain); Guto Reiten (Chelsea & Norway); Wendie Renard (Lyon & France); Fridolina Rolfo (Barcelona & Sweden); Jill Roord (Manchester City & Netherlands); Khadija Shaw (Manchester City & Jamaica); Sophia Smith (Portland Thorns & USA); Georgia Stanway (Bayern Munich & England); Daphne von Domselaar (Aston Villa & Netherlands).

In addition, the Yashin Award for the best men’s goalkeeper in the world and the Kopa Trophy for best young male player will be awarded. Arsenal’s Aaron Ramsdale and Manchester City’s Ederson are among the players nominated for best stopper, although with three of the ten nominees also in the running for the main award their chances seem slim. By the same token, Jude Bellingham and Jamal Musiala will be the favourites for the Kopa Trophy, with Manchester United’s new striker Rasmus Højlund also on the ten-man shortlist. At present, no equivalent awards are offered for the women’s game.

Who are the favourites?

The bookmakers seem certain that the men’s award will go to Argentina’s captain and World Cup talisman Messi, with the Inter Miami man down a huge odds-on favourite to scoop up an eighth and likely final award – Cristiano Ronaldo, the player with the second most wins in history, has five by way of comparison.

Erling Haaland is the only other player who doesn’t have extremely long odds with most bookies, with prices varying between 10/3 and 13/2 that the Norwegian treble winner will take the award. Judging by the odds offered on any of the other 28 players in the running there is little chance of an upset – Kylian Mbappé is down at 100/1 with some bookies despite scoring a World Cup final hat-trick, not to mention the very real argument that he actually is the best player in the world right now. Trophies and narratives talk in the Ballon d’Or voting, and Messi’s World Cup win is likely to talk very loudly indeed.

Odds are harder to come by for the women’s award with fewer bookmakers offering it as a market, but the strong feeling across the media is that Aitana Bonmatí, one of four stars of Spain’s World Cup winning squad nominated, is the hot favourite given that she also starred in Barcelona’s successful Champions League campaign.

Who are the past winners of the award?

Messi may be the king of Ballon d’Or (and Ronaldo may not be too far behind), but 35 other players have won the award since it began nearly 70 years ago, including most of the acknowledged greats of the game.

Michel Platini, Johan Cruyff and Marco van Basten have all taken home three men’s awards, while Kevin Keegan is the only Englishman with multiple awards, winning in both 1978 and 1979 while he was playing for Hamburg. Sir Stanley Matthews, Sir Bobby Charlton and Michael Owen have all won once each, as has the late George Best. Karim Benzema is the reigning Ballon d’Or after winning the 2022 trophy while he was at Real Madrid.

The biggest name absent from the list of winners is the legendary Pelé, because the award was only offered to European players up until 1995. France Football went on to publish an alternative list of players that would have won had they been eligible, and the Brazilian striker would have joined Messi on seven wins. Diego Maradona would have won two awards, in 1986 & 1990.

The women’s award only started in 2018, when Norway’s Ada Hegerberg was given the title. Megan Rapinoe won the following year, and while no trophy was awarded in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, Spain’s Alexia Putellas has taken the two titles on offer since then.

When and where is the ceremony?

The winners will be revealed in a glitzy ceremony at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris on 30 October. Proceedings will begin at 19:00 GMT and go on for two hours, no doubt with a number of legendary former players taking part.

Should you wish to get a ticket, they start at a cool £7,999 – and it will set you back £12,999 to sit with the players in the VIP area. Plus VAT, of course. No broadcaster has been announced at the time of writing for those wishing to save their money and stay home, but it has been shown on the BBC Sport website in recent years.