Last Premier League player to win Ballon d'Or: Erling Haaland chasing football's top prize

Manchester City's talismanic striker is usually too busy scoring more goals to be thinking about awards, but Erling Haaland was certainly competing to win the 2023 Ballon d'Or.

The Norwegian has been in awesome goalscoring form ever since joining City from Borussia Dortmund in the summer of 2022, in a £52m ($62.6m) transfer.

Haaland was unable to pip odds-on favourite Lionel Messi to the prize. The Inter Miami star won the award for the eighth time in his career after inspiring Argentina's World Cup heroics in 2022, meaning the wait for a Premier League player to lift the prize will go on for at least a 16th year.

Nevertheless, after a second consecutive Premier League title and Golden Boot, Haaland is back on the 2024 Ballon d'Or shortlist, with Messi not among the 30 nominees.

The Sporting News runs through the players from the Premier League (or English first division) to have won previous editions of the Ballon d'Or, as well as more details on the award.

MORE: What happened to Neymar? The sad story of PSG failure and ill-fated chase for the Ballon d'Or

Who was the last Premier League player to win the Ballon d'Or?

Karim Benzema's win in 2022 came after Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi had won all but one of the previous 13 titles between them.

Ronaldo remains the last player to have won while operating in the Premier League because of his first honour, which came during his first spell at Manchester United in 2008.

Others have gone close: City midfielder Kevin De Bruyne came third last in 2022, as did Chelsea's Jorginho in 2021 — although they were both a long distance behind respective winners Benzema and Messi in points terms.

Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk missed out to Messi by only seven points in 2019, and Ronaldo (United), Frank Lampard (Chelsea), Steven Gerrard (Liverpool), Fernando Torres (Liverpool) and Thierry Henry (Arsenal) have all finished in the top three since the Reds' Michael Owen prevailed in 2001. Haaland is the latest to get close after coming second in the 2023 vote.

All Cristiano Ronaldo's Ballon d'Or #ballondor pic.twitter.com/YrvJqFxKO2

— Ballon d'Or #ballondor (@ballondor) August 23, 2023

The Premier League in its current guise did not exist when a player from the division previously won the Ballon d'Or. Northern Ireland legend George Best played for Man United in the First Division — the original name for the Premier League — when he won it in 1968.

Best was the third player for an English club to win in five years, following Bobby Charlton in 1966 and Denis Law in 1964, both of whom were also partly rewarded for their achievements at United.

Law was the next representative of English teams to win after Stanley Matthews, the inaugural Ballon d'Or recipient in 1956. Matthews had helped Blackpool — now a third-tier team — finish as First Division runners-up and dazzled in the colours of England.

Here is the full list of Ballon d'Or winners who played for Premier League or old First Division teams at the time.

Who votes for the Ballon d'Or?

For the men's Ballon d'Or award, votes are now cast by 100 journalists from the 100 top ranked FIFA nations.

They are asked to rank their top five players from the 30-man shortlist in order of merit. The player ranked first receives five points, the second four points, and so on. 

Karim Benzema, the last Ballon d'Or winner!#ballondor pic.twitter.com/sAsi29wPoU

— Ballon d'Or #ballondor (@ballondor) August 19, 2023

The overall winner is confirmed by the player with the most total points from the votes. In the unlikely event of a tie, the winner is whoever has most first-place votes. 

Journalists will be instructed that individual performances should form the basis of their votes, with team trophies a secondary factor. 

Favourites to win Ballon d'Or 2024

Haaland is in contention once again but his Manchester City team-mate Rodri is the best-placed Premier League player to prevail.

City did not lose a game with Rodri in their team in England's top flight last season and the midfielder was similarly imperious as Spain romped to glory at Euro 2024.

Ironically, an Englishman might get in Rodri's way. Jude Bellingham excelled in his debut season at Real Madrid, for whom Vinicius Junior has also put himself in the frame.

MORE: Full list of Ballon d'Or 2024 nominees

Previous Ballon d'Or winners

Dutch giant Johan Cruyff became the first player to win the award three times in the 1970s. French star Michel Platini won three in a row — the first to achieve that feat — in the 1980s.

More recently, Messi beat Robert Lewandowski by a narrow margin for his seventh trophy in 2021.