Beckham Reckons Messi Should Win the Balon D'or, not Kane - Has He Lost the Plot?

Beckham Thinks Messi Should Win the Balon D'or over Harry Kane - Is He Insane?

Sir David Beckham has announced his support for Lionel Messi winning his 9th Balon D'or which in itself is not the craziest statement imaginable however what makes it insane is that he believes he should win it over Engald captain Harry Kane.

Now not to make accusations of bias however David Beckham does in fact own Inter Miami, the club that Messi plays for, which I think is fair to say probably skews his percpetion of who should win a Balon D'or when one of his players is in contention.

Now Messi has had a fantastic year, despite the fact it was in the MLS, but winning the Balon D'or is completely out of the picture if we're being realistic particulary with how stacked the lost of contendors are this year.

But why in particular is it so insane to say Messi should win it over Kane? Well luckily for you readers I'm gonna run through all the reasons that I think makes it a mental statement from Sir David.

"In my opinion, he should win [the Ballon d'Or]."

David Beckham on Messi. 🤝 pic.twitter.com/oGVTKvlTpo

— Major League Soccer (@MLS) September 17, 2026

Messi vs Kane in Stats and Achievements

One of the main ways that the Balon D'or is assessed whether we agree with the methodology or not is through the level of goal involvements, at least when it comes to attackers.

Trophies tend to count for a lot too but a massive factor tends to be how much an attacker has directly done their job in putting the ball in the back of the net or helping to put the ball in the abck of the net.

In both Messi's and Kane's instances they managed to do this to ridiculous levels last season however this is going to tie into the next point significantly.

Across all competitions both domestically and internationally Harry Kane was able to achieve a whopping 76 goals and 8 assists to total 84 goal contributions across the seaosn.

Lionel Messi in the same time frame was able to manage 45 goals and 30 assists across all competitions internationally and domestically, so when it comes to stats it's 1-0 to Harry Kane.

Moving onto what both of them achieved in the 25/26 season, which is the other integral part of the Balon D'or rankings, we find even more interesting results.

For Lionel Messi the acheievements are far easier to quantify, he had an incredible World Cup and his individual performances were vital in helping propel Argentina to the final, on top of this he won Inter Miami their first MLS Cup.

Harry Kane meanwhile he was a vital component in getting England to the semi-finals of the World Cup however with his club he beats Messi hands down, with Bayern he won the Bundesliga and the DFB Pokal, individually he won the European Golden Shoe.

So between stats and achievements its 2-0 to Harry Kane.

🚨💣 𝐄𝐗𝐂𝐋𝐔𝐒𝐈𝐕𝐄: Harry Kane is NOT planning to publicly campaign or promote himself to win the 2026 Ballon d’Or, despite finishing the season with more goals and assists than any other contender.

Those around Harry Kane say this reflects the way he has approached his… pic.twitter.com/ksTk2A4qF5

— The Touchline | 𝐓 (@TouchlineX) September 15, 2026

The League Quality Gap

Now a crucial element to combine with the fact that Kane beats Messi when it comes to both stats and acheievements is that Kane did all of this in signfiicantly harder competitions such as the Champions League and the Bundesliga which are inarguably more difficult that the MLS.

This is not intended to be disrespect to the MLS it is a very fast growing league and with the talent being attracted to it and the domestic talent being developed there is an incredibly strong likelihood that it will become one of the top competitions in the world if the projected growth rate is met.

That said this is not currently the situation with the MLS, it is very much as we just labelled it a growing and developing project, it does no yet have the pedigree and quality to match up to a top European league such as the Bundesliga.

We can back this up with the world league rankings as well, I mean it should be very inarguable but just to add to it there is factual evidence that there is a huge quality disparity between the two.

According to Global Football Rankings the current standings are that the Bundesliga is the second best league in the world whilst the MLS is all the way down in 14th.

With this information it becomes abundently clear that what Harry Kane did last season is by far and away more impressive and deerving of a Balon D'or than Messi.

Harry Kane has raised the possibility that he could combine becoming a specialist NFL kicker with finishing his football career in MLS playing the two sports simultaneously.

More from @JackPittBrooke ⬇️https://t.co/NZFWerLjlf pic.twitter.com/51p4CAVSq0

— The Athletic | Football (@TheAthleticFC) September 23, 2026

Beckhams Vested Interests

As we have established between stats and achievements Kane has had the far more deserving campaign that should result in a Balon D'or, which is why we think that David Beckham has gone insane to suggest Messi should win it over him.

So what could possibly have warped Beckhams view to think Messi is the more deserving one out of the pair?

Well as mentioned earlier David Beckham is in fact the owner of Inter Miami, the club Lionel Messi plays for so it would very much suit the club if they could state that they had the Balon D'or holder playing for them.

Its hardly like Messi needs an increase in public attention however no club would ever be upset at having the greatest player in the world at their club, in the same way Beckham being the owner of the club will likely have a very keen interest in using Messi winning yet another Balon D'or for marketing and growth purposes for the side.

All in all its probably fair to say that rather than Beckham entirely losing his mind he is simply quite biased in his view as its his player up for the award, unless he can prove he genuinely believes Messi should win it over Kane in which case I retract all previous statement and we can just brand him mental.

🏆 Lionel Messi confirms ‘The Messi Cup’ returns to Miami for its second edition from October 25 to November 1 2026.

There will be some of the world’s leading U-16 academies in an international youth football tournament founded by Leo Messi.

“The Messi Cup was created so that… pic.twitter.com/XX9YZNY03W

— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) September 22, 2026