There is no bigger individual achievement for a football player than to win the prestigious Ballon d'Or award. Winning the World Cup as a player is the ultimate achievement, of course, but that is a team achievement at the end of the day. You could argue that football is a team sport anyway, but for the specially gifted players, there are accolades beyond silverware that matter a lot. Ballon d'Or tops the list of such individual awards and the list of 30 nominees for the 2024-25 season was announced on Thursday (August 7). The two biggest names in modern day football, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, haven't been named in the Ballon d'Or list announced for the 2024-25 season.
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Of the 30 players who made the cut, Champions League winners Paris Saint-Germain had the most in the list with nine from the club. Ousmane Dembele, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Desire Doue, Achraf Haikimi, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Nuno Mendes, Joao Neves, Vitinha and Fabian Ruiz were the nominations from PSG with most of the names being on expected lines. Barcelona and Liverpool were the next most dominant clubs in the 30-member list with four players apiece from their respective sides. Robert Lewandowski, Lamine Yamal, Raphinha and Pedri were the nominees from the La Liga champions. Meanwhile, their arch-rivals Real Madrid had three nominations with Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius Jr and Jude Bellingham making the cut.
Here are the 2025 Ballon d'Or nominees!#ballondor pic.twitter.com/tehmbU4R0j
— Ballon d'Or (@ballondor) August 7, 2025
Premier League champions Liverpool had new-signing Florian Wirtz making the cut while the usual suspects in Mohammad Salah, Virgil van Dijk and Alexis Mac Allister were the players to make the list from the Reds. The voting system for the 30-member list officially opens today with the winner of the award to be announced in September.
Ballon d'Or 2025 nominees
Ousmane Dembele (PSG & France)
Gianluigi Donnarumma (PSG & Italy)
Jude Bellingham (Real Madrid & England)
Desire Doue (PSG & France)
Denzel Dumfries (Inter Milan & Netherlands)
Serhou Guirassy (Borussia Dortmund & Guinea)
Erling Haaland (Man City & Norway)
Viktor Gyokeres (Arsenal & Sweden)
Achraf Hakimi (PSG & Morocco)
Harry Kane (Bayern Munich & England)
Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (PSG & Georgia)
Robert Lewandowski (Barcelona & Poland)
Alexis Mac Allister (Liverpool & Argentina)
Lautaro Martinez (Inter Milan & Argentina)
Scott McTominay (Napoli & Scotland)
Kylian Mbappe (Real Madrid & France)
Nuno Mendes (PSG & Portugal)
Joao Neves (PSG & Portugal)
Pedri (Barcelona & Spain)
Cole Palmer (Chelsea & England)
Michael Olise (Bayern Munich & France)
Raphinha (Barcelona & Brazil)
Declan Rice (Arsenal & England)
Fabian Ruiz (PSG & Spain)
Virgil van Dijk (Liverpool & Netherlands)
Vinicius Jr (Real Madrid & Brazil)
Mohamed Salah (Liverpool & Egypt)
Florian Wirtz (Liverpool & Germany)
Vitinha (PSG & Portugal)
Lamine Yamal (Barcelona & Spain)
