Ballon d'Or 2025: Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe send Ousmane Dembele messages as tributes pour in | OneFootball

Frenchman beat off competition from Spanish starlet

Tributes from some of the world’s best players poured in as Ousmane Dembele won the 2025 Ballon d’Or.

Spanish midfielder Aitana Bonmati won the women’s award for the third time in Paris.

Dembele was present at the ceremony despite his club PSG having their Ligue 1 encounter with Marseille rescheduled for the Monday night, and the Parisians lost the fixture 1-0 thanks to a strike from Nayef Aguerd, the former West Ham defender.

But the spotlight was on Dembele, as he won the sport’s biggest individual honour for the first time in his career, and that led to two of football’s greats lauding him on social media.

Mbappe, the Real Madrid striker, took to his Instagram story to reshare PSG’s post celebrating their man’s victory.

Mbappe captioned the story: “Ousmane Dembele, those are the emotions! You deserve it x1000”.

Messi took to the comments section of Dembele’s post, saying, “Amazing Ous! Congrats, I am very happy for you. You deserve this”, accompanied by the raised hands emoji.

Karim Benzema, Dembele’s compatriot, posted a “bravo” message to Dembele on his Instagram story.

Dembele broke down in tears upon receiving the coveted trophy, and said it was “one of the best things I have accomplished in my career”.

There was one player, however, that wasn’t best pleased with the rankings, as Neymar voiced his displeasure.

The Brazilian was upset to see his compatriot Raphinha down in fifth in the top 10 rankings, and he took to Instagram to share his disappointment.

“Raphinha in fifth is too much of a joke,” he wrote in the comments of a post from the official Ballon d’Or Instagram page.