Ballon d’Or 2025 betting odds: Salah Slips as Barca Star Shortens to 9/4

We all know how quickly things can change in football, just ask Liverpool star Mohamed Salah.

It wasn’t that long ago that the Reds were fighting on four fronts for silverware and the Egyptian forward was the favourite on betting sites for this year’s Ballon d’Or.

A couple of below par performances from him and his teammates means they are out of the FA Cup and Champions League and were beaten in the final of the League Cup by Newcastle.

Barring a complete collapse, they will be win the Premier League title, but that is unlikely to be enough for Salah to be taking home the Ballon d’Or.

He was around 20/1 when the market opened on who would succeed Manchester City midfielder Rodri, before Salah’s odds were cut to just 7/2 by football betting sites. The market has now moved once again with the Egyptian on the drift at 11/2.

The bookmakers’ current favourite is Barcelona’s Raphinha at 9/4, while Real Madrid star Kylian Mbappe is second at 5/2.

Salah has scored 33 goals for club and country so far this season including 27 goals and 17 aasists in 29 Premier League appearances. While he still has nine games to add to that tally, his main rivals also have a chance to impress in the Champions League, which likely adds more weight to their claims.

Salah has been outstanding this season, especially with his future so uncertain. The 32-year-old is out of contract in the summer and yet to agree a new deal with the Reds, the club where he has spent the last eight years.

Five players in the top eight in the Ballon d’Or betting all come from LaLiga, with Barcelona and Real Madrid dominating again.

At the start of March, Raphinha was 16/1 to take the honour as Barcelona sat third in LaLiga – they are now top on goal difference from Real Madrid after winning their last seven league matches,

Since the turn of the year the Barcelona forward has scored 11 goals to take his tally for the season to 31, helping to set up a Champions League quarter-final with Borussia Dortmund in the process.

Kylian Mbappe is just the behind the Brazilian in the Ballon d’Or betting at 5/2 and he also has 31 goals for the season so far, including nine in his last 10 appearances.

He scored four goals as Real knocked Manchester City out of the Champions League, with a hat-trick at the Bernabeu as Carlo Ancelotti’s side wrapped up a 6-3 aggregate win.

Lamie Yamal is next in the market at 8/1. He won the Kopa Trophy at the Ballon d’Or awards last year, a prize presented to the best-performing player worldwide under the age of 21.

Considering he is still only 17, he could dominate that category for years to come. However, if his meteoric rise continues at the rate it’s going, who knows what he could have achieved by this time next year.

He burst onto the scene last season, breaking all sorts of LaLiga and Champions League records and was a surprise inclusion in Spain’s 26-man squad for the European Championship.

When he played against Croatia, he became the youngest player to feature in the tournament, aged just 16 years and 338 days.

He scored in the semi-final win over France and played 89 minutes of the final as Spain beat England to win the trophy, and his performances saw him named Uefa Young Player of the Tournament.

The midfielder has continued where he left off last season with 14 goals so far, including one apiece in the two wins over Real.

Time is ticking for Vinicius Junior at 12/1 and Jude Bellingham at 25/1 to close the gap on the favourites. The pair finished second and third to Rodri at the 2024 awards and it’s hard to see how they will better what they achieved last season.

Vinicius Jr was the leading contender on betting apps to win the 2024 prize, right up to the day of the awards, only to be pipped at the post by Rodri in a decision which raised a lot of eyebrows.

The Brazilian was Real Madrid’s top goalscorer with 24 goals in all competitions last season as they won LaLiga, the Spanish Super Cup and the Uefa Champions League.

He also assisted with 11 further goals giving him 35 goal contributions in just 39 appearances in all competitions – which works out at a goal or assist every 88 minutes. All of this while also missing two months of the season.

He has 17 goals in 30 appearances so far this season and hasn’t always found it easy working with Mbappe in Real’s star-studded line-up.

Bellingham is a curious case as he has struggled to hit the heights of his debut campaign. He also has undoubted ability on the pitch, but he will need a strong end to the campaign to push himself into contention.

Ousmane Dembele has been something of a dark horse this season and has appeared out of nowhere to be the current fifth favourite for the title and the only player from France.

The Paris St-Germain forward also has 31 goals so far and he has been in unbelievable form since the start of December – scoring 24 goals in his last 17 club games!

PSG, who are through to the last eight of the Champions League after knocking out Liverpool, are 19 points clear of Marseille at the top of Ligue 1 and they have already won the French Champion’s Trophy.

The only other player who isn’t playing in Spain to be included in the top eight of the Ballon d’Or betting is England captain Harry Kane, who has once against been scoring goals for fun for Bayern Munich.

The striker settled into life in Germany with ease, netting 52 goals in 59 games for club and country last season, without winning a single trophy.

He has followed it up with 36 goals in 43 appearances this season as Bayern sit eight points clear at the top of the Bundesliga and face Inter Milan in the Champions League quarter-finals.

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