Rodri finished fourth overall, while Harry Kane won the 2026 award by just 28 points.
Nigeria's voter in the 2026 men's Ballon d'Or put Spanish midfielder Rodri first on their ballot, according to the voting breakdown published on Friday. Nigeria was one of 10 countries whose journalists placed Rodri first. The nine remaining nations were Iceland, Croatia, Vietnam, Thailand, Serbia, the Czech Republic, South Korea, Guatemala and the United States.
Rodri still finished fourth overall with 726 points and 10 first-place votes. That put him behind Bayern Munich striker Harry Kane on 1,055 points, Real Madrid forward Kylian Mbappé on 1,027 and Barcelona youngster Lamine Yamal on 881. Yamal, 146 points behind Mbappé, took 13 first-place votes.
The Nigerian voter also placed Paris Saint-Germain forward Ousmane Dembélé second. Dembélé, who won the 2025 award, finished seventh this time on 418 points and got no first-place votes from any of the 100 journalists who took part. Voters from seven countries placed him second: Burkina Faso, China, France, Georgia, Haiti, North Macedonia and Nigeria.
Kane's win was tight. He took 40 first-place votes, while Mbappé had 23. According to L'Equipe, Kane's 28-point margin made it the fourth-closest vote in the award's 70-year history, and the closest since Lionel Messi beat Virgil van Dijk by seven points in 2019.
The jury is made up of journalists from the 100 highest-ranked countries in the FIFA rankings, and each voter picks 10 players from the shortlist. A first-place vote is worth 15 points, second 12, third 10, and the rest of the top 10 get 8, 7, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 points.
Kane was presented with the award in London on Monday, where he also won the striker of the year trophy. ESPN says he scored 73 goals for club and country last season, when he was Europe's top scorer.
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