The Ballon d'Or is an annual football award presented by French news magazine France Football that is one of the oldest and generally regarded as the most prestigious individual award for football players.It has been awarded since 1956, although between 2010 and 2015, an agreement was made with FIFA, and the award was temporarily merged with the FIFA World Player of the Year (founded in 1991) and known as the FIFA Ballon d'Or. However, the partnership ended in 2016, and the award reverted to the Ballon d'Or, while FIFA also reverted to its own separate annual award The Best FIFA Men's Player. The recipients of the joint FIFA Ballon d'Or are considered as winners by both award organisations.

Conceived by sports writer Gabriel Hanot, the Ballon d'Or award honours the male player deemed to have performed the best over the previous year, based on voting by football journalists, from 1956 to 2006. After 2007, coaches and captains of national teams were also given the right to vote.

Originally, it was an award only for players from Europe and widely known as the European Footballer of the Year award. In 1995, the Ballon d'Or was expanded to include all players from any origin that have been active at European clubs. The award became a global prize in 2007 with all professional footballers from around the world being eligible.

Stanley Matthews of Blackpool was the inaugural winner of the Ballon d'Or. Milan's George Weah, the only African recipient, became the first non-European to win the award in 1995, the year that rules of eligibility were changed for the first time. Ronaldo of Internazionale became the first South American winner two years later. The second rule change in 2007 to include players from all continents did not bring up new winners, as all recipients since then have still exclusively been active in Europe during their win.

Lionel Messi has won the award a record six times (2009, 2010, 2011,2012, 2015, 2019) while playing for Barcelona, followed by Cristiano Ronaldo, who has won five (one with Manchester United and four with Real Madrid). Three players have won the award three times each: Johan Cruyff of Ajax and Barcelona, Michel Platini of Juventus, and Marco van Basten of Milan. With seven awards each, Dutch, German, and Portuguese players have won the most Ballons d'Or. Players from Germany (1972, 1981) and the Netherlands (1988) were the only to take all three top spots in one year, with German (1972) and especially Italian clubs (1988–1990) achieving the same feat, including two years solely made up of AC Milan players (1988, 1989), a unique record until Spanish clubs experienced an unforeseen dominance (2009–2012, 2015, 2016) and Barcelona (2010) became the second club with three top players. Two Spanish clubs, Barcelona and Real Madrid, also lead the ranking for employing the most winners, with twelve and eleven wins.

Between 2010 and 2015 inclusive, the award was merged with a similar one, the FIFA World Player of the Year award, to create the FIFA Ballon d'Or, which was awarded to the world's best male player before FIFA and France Football decided not to continue the merging agreement. After 2011, UEFA created the UEFA Best Player in Europe Award to maintain the tradition of the original Ballon d'Or of specifically honouring a football player from Europe.