Kylian Mbappé Ballon d'Or 2026: Umtiti rejects the campaign

Samuel Umtiti has criticised the growing public campaign around the Ballon d'Or 2026, arguing that the individual prize is taking attention away from the collective purpose of football. The former France defender and current RMC Sport consultant was reacting to a week of increasingly direct declarations from several leading candidates, including Kylian Mbappé, Ousmane Dembélé and Lamine Yamal.

The award ceremony is scheduled for 26 October in London. The debate intensified after the return of the Champions League, with Mbappé openly presenting himself as a credible candidate. The France forward pointed to his statistics and records, despite not having won major club or international titles during the period under consideration. His confidence has placed him at the centre of a discussion that Umtiti believes players should not be driving themselves.

“C'est une personne sûre de lui,” Umtiti said of Mbappé during After Foot. He acknowledged that the forward had scored many goals and performed at a high level at certain moments. However, he questioned whether Mbappé should be the person to identify himself as the leading candidate when asked who deserves the award. Umtiti’s objection is not to Mbappé’s ability to speak with confidence, but to the decision to make a personal prize a public objective.

“On peut dire que ce n'est pas forcément à lui de parler de ça, lui doit s'occuper de ce qu'il se fait sur le terrain,” Umtiti said. He added that, when asked who he would choose, Mbappé had ultimately chosen himself. “Ça plaît ou ça ne plaît pas. Moi, je ne suis pas forcément d'accord avec ça,” the 2018 world champion said, while stressing that attacking players appear especially invested in winning the Ballon d'Or.

The 30-player shortlist has added further fuel to the argument. It includes Mbappé and nine players from Paris Saint-Germain, the club that won the Champions League. Dembélé, the 2025 Ballon d'Or winner, has said the prize cannot escape one of his PSG team-mates. Yamal, representing Barcelona, has instead highlighted his World Cup success with Spain. Those competing claims have created a public conversation in which individual statistics, club success and international honours are being weighed against one another before the winner is known.

Umtiti was particularly surprised by the inclusion of Quiñones. He referred to the Mexico forward’s four goals at the World Cup, while also noting that Mexico were eliminated in the last 16. “Quand j'ai vu ça, je me suis demandé si c'était une blague,” he said. The remark underlined his broader concern that the nomination process can place too much emphasis on goals and attacking output without giving sufficient weight to the overall performance of a team.

For Umtiti, the problem extends beyond one player or one shortlist. “Cette cérémonie n'a plus aucun sens, ça fait très mal au football, qui est très collectif,” he said. He argued that some players can win the Champions League with their team and still appear more focused on the personal award than on the collective trophy. In his view, a season cannot be judged through numbers alone, even when those numbers belong to one of the world’s most productive forwards.

“On pense beaucoup plus à gagner le Ballon d'or qu'aux prix collectifs,” Umtiti said. He rejected the idea that statistics should settle the debate, adding: “Le football, ce n'est pas que des stats.” His position places particular importance on the relationship between individual performance and team achievement, an issue made more visible this year by the presence of several PSG players after their Champions League triumph.

The former defender also compared the current race with the period dominated by Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. He said he had stopped watching the award “depuis l'ère Messi-Ronaldo”, because their statistics were so exceptional that the absence of a major title did not necessarily diminish their seasons. The present contest, he argued, lacks one player who stands clearly above the others. That uncertainty has allowed several candidates to promote their own cases, but it has also made the debate more fragmented.

The next major date is the ceremony in London on 26 October, when the shortlist will produce one winner. Until then, Mbappé’s records, PSG’s Champions League success, Dembélé’s status as the 2025 winner and Yamal’s international achievement will remain central to the discussion. Umtiti’s intervention has shifted the focus from who has the strongest statistical case to whether the Ballon d'Or debate still reflects football as a team sport.