There’s a New Favourite in the Ballon d’Or Odds Following PSG’s Champions League Triumph

Golden Football in Shadow

PSG’s 5-0 demolition of Inter Milan secured them their first ever touch of the Champions League trophy – a long time coming, perhaps, for the richest football club on the planet.

The Parisians’ performance as a collective unit was outstanding, but some standout individuals were vital to their Champions League success – both in the final and the earlier rounds – and in their lifting of the Ligue 1 title.

So much so, one PSG player has now gone odds on to clinch the Ballon d’Or for the first time in their career….

Best in the Business?

Ballon d'Or 2025 Betting

So who is it? Champions League final man of the match Desire Doue? Impenetrable goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma? Flying full back Achraf Hakimi?

None of the above. Step forward Ousmane Dembele, the 28-year-old Frenchman who has enjoyed the best season of his career to date.

He scored a grand total of 34 goals in 58 appearances for club and country, while assisting 12 more and winning the man of the match award on a dozen different occasions.

Dembele had at least one goal involvement in both legs of the Champions League quarter final and semi-final, as well as assisting two goals in PSG’s romp over Inter in the final.

He was named as UEFA’s Champions League Player of the Season accordingly, with most therefore expecting the Ballon d’Or to follow.

Dembele has been shortened to as low as 2/5 by some bookmakers after they received a flurry of bets on the September showpiece, which aims to crown the best player on the planet over the course of the season prior.

Whether the 2025 Ballon d’Or is as open and shut as that remains to be seen. Lamine Yamal, the prodigiously-talented teenager, has followed up last summer’s EURO 2024 triumph with Spain by clinching the La Liga and Copa del Rey titles with Barcelona – he’s also served up 40 goal involvements for club and country in 2024/25.

And then there’s Mo Salah, who at the age of 32 appears to be getting even better. He delivered an astonishing 47 goal involvements in Liverpool’s Premier League title win, not missing a single game.

For club and country in 2024/25 in all competitions, the Egyptian scored 40 goals and assisted 23 more in just 58 appearances… no wonder he was crowned Premier League Player of the Year.

Yamal and Salah are the next best in the Ballon d’Or betting odds behind Dembele, with Raphinha – Yamal’s Barcelona teammate – and PSG’s Champions League stars Doue and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia also in the hunt for the honour.

When Is the Ballon d’Or Winner Announced?

Founded by France Football, the respected magazine covering everything to do with the beautiful game, the Ballon d’Or has been dished out to the season’s best player since 1956.

For many years, the award was only open to European players – that was changed in 2007 to welcome nominations from stars all over the globe, while a brief dalliance with FIFA saw the Ballon d’Or and the FIFA Player of the Year awards merged between 2010 and 2015.

The Ballon d’Or winner is decided by invited journalists from the top 100 countries in football’s international world rankings, who each get a vote on who should lift the trophy.

Anecdotally, the Ballon d’Or is given to the player that has shown the best individual performances, strength of character and fair play, although in truth it’s generally handed to an individual that a) plays for a team that has won a major trophy, and b) they have contributed significantly to that… typically by scoring goals.

In the past 30 years, only two defenders – Matthias Sammer and Fabio Cannavaro – have won the Ballon d’Or, while Lev Yashin was the last goalkeeper to be given the nod… in 1963.

Lionel Messi has won the Ballon d’Or eight times; a fact that will surely stick in the craw of his old frenemy Cristiano Ronaldo, who has only been served the distinction on five occasions – the same as the legendary Johan Cruyff, Marco van Basten and Michel Platini.

While defensive midfielders have come into the Ballon d’Or reckoning in recent years, with Luka Modric winning the award in 2018 and Rodri last year, the likelihood is that an attacking player for a successful team will be handed the trinket.

Perhaps Dembele is a fair price after all…

We’ll find out who’s been chosen when the awards ceremony is held on September 22 at the Theatre du Chatelet in, perhaps fittingly, Paris. Both the men’s and the women’s Ballon d’Or winners will be announced.