2025 Ballon d’Or Shockers: Ousmane Dembele and Lamine Yamal’s Surprising Standings – Did Mohamed Salah or Kylian Mbappe Dominate the Vote?

The Ballon d’Or stage in Paris saw Ousmane Dembele and Aitana Bonmatí crowned the best players in the world, capping off an evening of glittering awards and emotional speeches. Yet behind the glamour of the ceremony, the real drama unfolded in the form of numbers. The official voting breakdown for the 2025 Ballon d’Or has now been revealed, finally showing how Dembele, Lamine Yamal, Mohamed Salah, Kylian Mbappe, and the other superstars fared in the ballots

The details shed light on a fiercely competitive race, one in which legends and rising stars collided in pursuit of soccer’s most prestigious individual honor. Unlike some awards determined by committees or former players, the Ballon d’Or is entrusted to the world’s soccer journalists. 

“Each journalist will score five players, and encompassing all the votes, from there will come the final winner,” France Football explained earlier. A total of 180 journalists from FIFA’s top-ranked countries are given a ballot. Their selections are weighted: six points for a first-place vote, four for second, three for third, two for fourth, and one for fifth.

The Theatre du Chatelet once again provided the backdrop for soccer’s biggest stars. Dembele, fresh from a season in which Paris Saint-Germain completed a historic quadruple. But his triumph came after whispers that Yamal—the 18-year-old who already commands headlines across Europe—might snatch the crown. In the end, the Frenchman’s brilliance carried him through comfortably, but the voting numbers revealed that the teenager wasn’t far behind

Final numbers revealed

When the official breakdown was published, the results painted a picture of both dominance and rising competition. France Football reported: “Dembele received 1,380 points, 321 more than Yamal, who finished second with 1,059.”

Vitinha, one of PSG’s unsung midfield heroes, surprisingly rounded out the top three, while Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah and Barcelona’s Raphinha followed closely. Here’s how the top 10 shaped up:

Rank	Player	Country	Club	Points
1.	Ousmane Dembele	France	PSG	1,380
2.	Lamine Yamal	Spain	Barcelona	1,059
3.	Vitinha	Portugal	PSG	703
4.	Mohamed Salah	Egypt	Liverpool	657
5.	Raphinha	Brazil	Barcelona	620
6.	Achraf Hakimi	Morocco	PSG	484
7.	Kylian Mbappe	France	Real Madrid	378
8.	Cole Palmer	England	Chelsea	211
9.	Gianluigi Donnarumma	Italy	PSG/Manchester City	172
10.	Nuno Mendes	Portugal	PSG	171

Why Dembele prevailed

What pushed Dembele over the top was the sheer weight of first-place votes. According to France Football, “the Frenchman finished with 73 first-place votes compared to Yamal’s 11.”