Ballon d’Or 2026: Hakimi and Mané Are Africa’s Nominees

Morocco’s Achraf Hakimi and Senegal’s Sadio Mané are the only two Africans among the 30 names on the Ballon d’Or 2026 shortlist, released September 8. The winner will be revealed at a ceremony at the London Palladium on October 26, the first time the event has been held outside Paris.

Neither man is considered a serious threat to win. Bayern Munich’s Harry Kane and Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal are the front runners, and Paris Saint-Germain, fresh off retaining the Champions League, placed a record 10 players on the list. Still, the nominations keep Africa in the room at football’s most prestigious individual award, one the continent has claimed only once, when Liberia’s George Weah won it in 1995.

Hakimi’s Case: Back-to-Back European Champion

Hakimi, 27, is up for a second straight year after finishing sixth in the 2025 vote, his best result yet. His 2025-26 season included 4 goals and 17 assists in 49 appearances, a Ligue 1 title, and a Champions League final win over Arsenal on penalties in Budapest that made PSG only the second club in history to retain the trophy. He also set up 7 goals during PSG’s Champions League run alone. In September 2025, CAF named him African Footballer of the Year, the continental honor often called the African Ballon d’Or, and the pattern for that award is notable this year: every winner since 2016 has also been on the global shortlist, and this year Hakimi and Mané are the only two Africans on it.

Mané’s Ballon d’Or Case Rests on a Title Senegal No Longer Officially Holds

Mané, 34, four years removed from Liverpool and three seasons into a career in Saudi Arabia, finished the season with 24 goals and 13 assists across 55 appearances for club and country. He won the Saudi Pro League with Al-Nassr and was named Player of the Tournament at the Africa Cup of Nations, where he scored twice and set up three more as Senegal beat host Morocco 1-0 in extra time to reach the final.

That AFCON title is the same one CAF stripped from Senegal in March, over a match-ending walkout, before awarding it to Morocco instead.

ALSO READ: Senegal’s AFCON Title Appeal Gets an October Court Date

Senegal’s appeal will be heard at the Court of Arbitration for Sport on October 8, just over two weeks before the Ballon d’Or ceremony, and CAF’s ruling stands until then. Mané’s individual award for the tournament hasn’t been challenged, but the case is a reminder that the trophy he is partly being nominated for currently belongs, on paper, to the team he beat.

The nomination itself has split opinion at home. Some in Senegal and across African football see a 34-year-old playing outside Europe’s spotlight as a surprising pick over a younger, in-form alternative. Others point to his numbers and his tournament-defining run and call the selection earned. Ismaïla Sarr, whose own season drew strong reviews, was left off the 30-man list entirely, a detail African football writers flagged as the most notable exclusion.

A Deep Bench Behind Them

Hakimi and Mané are not the only Africans in contention this awards season. Morocco’s Yassine Bounou, Senegal’s Édouard Mendy and Cape Verde’s Vozinha make up three of the 10 nominees for the Yashin Trophy, the award for the world’s best goalkeeper, the strongest African showing the category has had since it began in 2019. Morocco’s Ayyoub Bouaddi, Ivory Coast’s Yan Diomandé and Algeria’s Ibrahim Maza are among the nominees for the men’s Young Player award. And Zambia’s Barbra Banda and Malawi’s Temwa Chawinga, the Golden Boot winner at this year’s Women’s Africa Cup of Nations, are on the 30-woman shortlist for the women’s Ballon d’Or.

The Wait Continues

None of that changes the calendar. Weah’s win came in 1995, when he played for AC Milan, and no African has finished on the podium’s top step since, a 31-year gap that this year’s shortlist won’t close. Kane’s season (73 goals for club and country) and Yamal’s breakout year have made them the names to beat, and analysts already see a better opening for an African winner in the 2026-27 cycle than this one, pointing to the next Africa Cup of Nations and a run of African players entering their prime at Europe’s biggest clubs. That’s a case for next year. For now, Hakimi and Mané carry the continent alone into a room where neither is expected to leave with the trophy.