Hainer Backs Kane to Beat Olise to Ballon d'Or: "I'd Give It to Harry"

Bayern Munich president Herbert Hainer has thrown his weight behind Harry Kane in the race for the Ballon d'Or, insisting the England captain should take the award ahead of club team-mate Michael Olise when it is handed out later this month.

Kane is among the frontrunners for the prize after a remarkably free-scoring 2025-26 campaign with Bayern, with Kylian Mbappe and World Cup winner Lamine Yamal his closest challengers. Olise is rated an outside contender after a stellar season of his own in Munich — but Hainer was in no doubt about who he would choose.

"Both deserve it — but I would give it to Harry Kane"

Hainer made his preference explicit in an interview with BILD, even as he praised Olise's own claim to the trophy.

"Both Michael and Harry deserve it [the Ballon d'Or]," Hainer said. "But I would give it to Harry Kane. Michael Olise has many more years ahead of him to win the Ballon d'Or."

A 64-goal Bayern season and a slice of Bundesliga history

Kane plundered 64 goals across all competitions, including the Club World Cup, for Bayern last term, before scoring six more to help Thomas Tuchel's side finish third at the World Cup. No other player from Europe's top five leagues scored more than 50 goals in all competitions last season, with Mbappe his closest challenger on a half-century for Real Madrid.

The 32-year-old's Bayern record now stands at 154 goals in 156 matches since he joined from Tottenham in August 2023, a spell that has brought two Bundesliga titles and a DFB-Pokal. He also wrote his name into the Bundesliga history books by reaching the 100-goal landmark in his 98th appearance — the quickest player to that tally, smashing Dieter Muller's previous record of 129 games.

Kane has reportedly agreed a new deal at Bayern that would take him through to the end of the 2028-29 campaign.

Olise's record-breaking counter-argument

Olise's case is far from flimsy. The French winger racked up 34 goal involvements last season — 15 goals and 19 assists — a new record for a winger since Opta data collection began in the German top flight in 2004-05. Only Kane (41) directly contributed to more Bundesliga goals than Olise, who also scored five goals and provided seven assists in 13 Champions League games.

He carried that form into the World Cup, becoming the first player on record since 1966 to register seven assists in a single edition of the tournament — a statistic that has kept him in the Ballon d'Or conversation.

Kane already leads the running

Hainer's endorsement chimes with wider sentiment around the award. The Athletic ranked Kane as the leading contender for the 2026 men's Ballon d'Or in rankings published on 9 September, placing Olise second and Rodri third, ahead of Mbappe, Erling Haaland and Lamine Yamal. Performance data from last August through July, including the World Cup, forms the basis of the voting, with 100 journalists deciding the outcome.