France Football magazine revealed the shortlist

The famous French magazine “France Football” announced yesterday the shortlist of 30 players nominated for the Ballon d’Or award for the best player in the world for 2024-2025. Dembélé and Yamal appear to be the leading candidates to win the award this year, due to the outstanding performances each has delivered with their teams, contributing to winning three titles last season.

The list included only two Arab stars: Moroccan Achraf Hakimi, right-back for Paris Saint-Germain, and Egyptian Mohamed Salah, right winger for Liverpool.

Both players delivered remarkable performances with their clubs last season, with Hakimi winning the historic treble (Ligue 1, French Cup, and Champions League) with PSG, who also finished second in the Club World Cup held in the United States last month.

The list also included 8 other players from Paris Saint-Germain besides Hakimi: Ousmane Dembélé, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Désiré Doué, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Nuno Mendes, João Neves, Fabian Ruiz, and Vitinha.

Liverpool was represented by 3 players besides Salah: Dutch Virgil van Dijk, Argentine Alexis Mac Allister, and German Florian Wirtz, the new addition to the Reds.

Real Madrid was represented by 3 players: English Jude Bellingham, French Kylian Mbappé, and Brazilian Vinícius Júnior, while Barcelona, who won La Liga, Copa del Rey, and the Spanish Super Cup last season, had 4 players: Polish Robert Lewandowski, Spaniards Pedri and Lamine Yamal, and Brazilian Raphinha.

The list also included English Harry Kane and French Michael Olise (Bayern Munich), Swedish Victor Gyökeres and English Declan Rice (Arsenal), Dutch Denzel Dumfries and Argentine Lautaro Martínez (Inter Milan).

Norwegian Erling Haaland (Manchester City), English Cole Palmer (Chelsea), Scottish Scott McTominay (Napoli), and Guinean Serhou Guirassy (Borussia Dortmund) were also included.