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Harry Kane was named the winner of the 2026 men's Ballon d'Or at a ceremony in London on Monday night, becoming the first English player to take football's best-known individual prize since Michael Owen in 2001.

The 33-year-old Bayern Munich striker and England captain finished ahead of Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe and Barcelona's Lamine Yamal in the voting. Rodri, the 2024 winner, was fourth and Lionel Messi, who has won the award eight times, was fifth. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia of Georgia came sixth, ahead of Ousmane Dembele, Erling Haaland, Michael Olise and Fabian Ruiz. Alexia Putellas won the women's award for the third time, the BBC reported.

The ceremony was held at the London Palladium, the first time the trophy has been presented outside France, in the 70th year of an award first given to England's Stanley Matthews in 1956. The Brazilian striker Ronaldo, a two-time winner, handed Kane the trophy, and Bangla Tribune reported that the audience chanted Kane's name as he collected it.

Kane's case rested on volume rather than a Champions League or World Cup medal. He scored 61 goals in 51 club matches last season, the most any Bayern player has managed in a single campaign, and 73 goals plus eight assists in 65 games once England appearances are included. Among players at clubs in Europe's top five leagues, only Messi's 82 goals for Barcelona and Argentina in 2011-12 stands above that total.

The spread of those goals explains the vote. Kane was the Bundesliga's top scorer with 36, 17 clear of his nearest rival, and scored 14 in the Champions League for a side that lost in the semi-finals. He added 10 in the German Cup, including a hat-trick in the 3-0 final win over Stuttgart, and one in the German Super Cup. For England he scored 12, six of them at the World Cup, where he captained the team to the semi-finals.

That meant Bayern finished with the German double while Kane ended the season without either of football's biggest team prizes. The BBC noted that only one player at a top-five-league club has ever scored more in a season, and that Kane is the first Bayern player to win the Ballon d'Or since Karl-Heinz Rummenigge in 1981. He is the fifth English winner, after Matthews, Bobby Charlton, Kevin Keegan and Owen.

Kane said the award had not looked likely for much of his career. "Not many people would have thought it, and maybe even I wouldn't have thought I'd be this far," he told DAZN. "I had to go through many ups and downs, especially early in my career. I was never the person that people thought was going to be the superstar like some of the guys now."

Bangla Tribune reported that Kane told the London audience he was close to losing his words on stage, thanked those who voted for him and said the contest had been difficult because several world-class players were in contention. He also thanked his Bayern and England team-mates, and paid tribute to Tottenham Hotspur, the club he joined at the age of 11 and left in 2023.

England manager Thomas Tuchel said he was "delighted" and called the win a "huge honour", while Prince William described Kane as a "brilliant captain" and a "remarkable player", according to the BBC. The arches at Wembley were lit in gold on Monday night to mark the result.

The result went against the recent pattern of the award. In four of the past seven World Cup years the Ballon d'Or has gone to a world champion, and Yamal, who won the World Cup with Spain, had been one of the favourites. The BBC said this is only the fifth time in 20 years that the winner had not also taken the World Cup, Champions League or a continental championship.

Attention has already turned to whether Kane can keep the trophy. He has scored 16 goals in 16 games for Bayern and England this season, and Bayern are unbeaten in the Bundesliga and the Champions League. Yamal, who was named best young player for a third straight year, has 10 goals and 10 assists in 13 games for Barcelona, and Mbappe has 14 in 13 for club and country. The last player other than Messi or Ronaldo to win in consecutive years was Marco van Basten in 1988 and 1989.

The full voting breakdown has not been published in detail, and Kane has not said whether he intends to play on through the next World Cup cycle. For now, the award settles a long-running argument about whether a striker can be named the world's best without a major international or European title in the same season.

A third pair of trains began running between Dhaka and Cox's Bazar on Monday evening, with Railway Minister Shaikh Rabiul Alam saying a Shovon Chair seat on the full route will cost Tk 685.

The minister inaugurated the service at Kamalapur Railway Station in Dhaka. BSS reported the new train as "Mahanagar Provati", while UNB described the launch as an extension of the existing Mahanagar Express, which until now ran only between Dhaka and Chattogram. Both accounts agree on the fares, the timetable and the plan to add more trains on the route.

Before Monday, two train pairs — the Cox's Bazar Express and the Tourist Express — had been running on the 467.83-kilometre route since the line opened in December 2023. The addition takes the daily total to three pairs. According to the published timetable, the train leaves Kamalapur at 8:30pm, reaches Chattogram at 2:40am and arrives at Cox's Bazar station at 6:00am. The return service leaves Cox's Bazar at 9:00am, stops at Chattogram at 12:10pm and is due in Dhaka at 6:30pm. The journey takes about nine and a half hours in each direction, and the train does not run on Sundays.

The new service stops at 12 stations between the two ends: Airport, Narsingdi, Bhairab Bazar, Ashuganj, Brahmanbaria, Akhaura, Kasba, Cumilla, Laksam, Nangalkot, Feni and Chattogram. The old halt at Kumira has been dropped. Passengers from those intermediate districts can now reach Cox's Bazar without changing trains.

Fares are set by seat class. The minister put the Shovon Chair fare at Tk 685 and the AC Chair fare at about Tk 1,311. The railway's fare table, as reported by UNB, runs up to Tk 1,570 for the highest class, and a seat between Cox's Bazar and Chattogram costs Tk 240 to Tk 547. The two reports also differ slightly on capacity, with BSS saying the train has about 706 seats and UNB putting it at 736 after the number of coaches was raised. Tickets are sold through the Rail Sheba app and website and at station counters.

Rabiul Alam said demand for the route had long outpaced the number of trains the railway could operate. He blamed a shortage of locomotives and coaches, and said procurement of new rolling stock, track work and other projects were under way to raise capacity. "To facilitate passengers, we are introducing a train named Mahanagar Provati from Dhaka to Cox's Bazar via Chattogram," BSS quoted him as saying. The government, he added, wants to increase the service gradually to seven pairs a day because the line matters for both tourism and ordinary travel.

Cox's Bazar is the country's best-known beach destination, and the rail link, built under the Dohazari–Cox's Bazar project, gave travellers an alternative to a road journey that often stretches past ten hours. Since the line opened, seats on the two existing trains have frequently sold out around holidays.

It is not yet clear how quickly the remaining four pairs could be added, given the rolling-stock shortage the minister himself described, or how full the first trips will be. The railway has not said whether the Tk 685 fare is fixed for the long term or could be revised. The first return service from Cox's Bazar was due to leave on Tuesday morning, giving officials an early sign of how the timetable holds on the coast.

State Minister for Railways Habibur Rashid, Railways Secretary Md Fahimul Islam and Bangladesh Railway Director General Md Afzal Hossain attended the opening, according to UNB.