In one of the closest finishes in the award's history, French winger Ousmane Dembélé has been crowned The Guardian's best male footballer of the year for 2025. The Barcelona star pipped his teenage teammate, Lamine Yamal, to the top spot by a razor-thin margin of just 128 points.
A Nail-Biting Finish
The result underscores the incredible tightness of this year's ranking. A panel of 219 judges distributed a colossal 179,580 points in total, with each judge awarding 820 points across their selections. The minuscule gap between first and second place, within such a vast points pool, highlights how fiercely contested the accolade was.
Both players featured on the vast majority of ballots, with 216 judges including both Dembélé and Yamal on their voting slips. The crucial difference lay in the number of first-place votes: 101 judges placed the French international at the summit of their list, while 33 judges gave the top spot to the 18-year-old Spanish prodigy.
Transparency in the Voting Process
True to its commitment to openness, The Guardian publishes the full breakdown of all votes once the complete list of the top 100 is revealed. Readers can examine a detailed spreadsheet showing how every single one of the 179,580 points was allocated.
The voting mechanics are designed for depth and fairness. Each judge selects and ranks 40 players. Their top choice receives 40 points, their second gets 39, and so on down to 1 point for their 40th selection. These raw scores are then aggregated. To ensure the final ranking isn't skewed by a single outlier, the highest score awarded to any player is deducted to produce their final tally.
A Legacy of Insight
This marks the 14th annual edition of the rankings for male footballers. A key feature introduced last year is an interactive search engine, allowing fans to trace the history of any player who has ever received a vote. Whether curious about the peak ranking of legends like Lionel Messi or the consistency of icons like Wayne Rooney, supporters can input any name and explore their journey across the years.
To protect the impartiality of the judges, individual voting records are anonymised in the published data. Voters are identified only by a broad category and a randomly assigned number, ensuring they can express their opinions freely without external pressure.
The outcome confirms a spectacular year for Barcelona, with two of its brightest stars dominating the global conversation. While Dembélé takes the crown for 2025, the astonishingly narrow margin suggests the battle for supremacy is fiercer than ever.
