Major blunder on the eve of the ceremony: Ballon d'Or website accidentally announces three winners at once

A bizarre technical glitch on the official Ballon d'Or website resulted in Harry Kane, Kylian Mbappé and Lamine Yamal being simultaneously named as the winners of the year's top individual award.

Details: Ahead of the main event of the gala ceremony in London, three mutually contradictory reports unexpectedly appeared on the award's official website, publicly accessible to all. Each article claimed that one of the three leading contenders had won the coveted trophy: Bayern's prolific striker Kane, Real Madrid forward Mbappé and Barcelona's young leader Yamal.

Within minutes, the website's technical staff spotted the error and promptly deleted all three pages. However, users had already taken screenshots and shared them across social media. The incident was reportedly caused by the portal's editors preparing template articles for each of the likely favorites in advance, so the correct version could be published immediately after the envelope was opened on stage.

It is worth noting that the organizers of the 70th Ballon d'Or ceremony have kept the winner's identity under the tightest secrecy until the very last moment, abandoning for the first time the practice of informing the victor in advance. The web editorial team's embarrassing blunder clearly showed that even the award's technical staff do not know the exact outcome of the vote and are preparing for any of the season's three leading contenders to win.

Reminder: First results from the biggest night of the year: the opening part of the Ballon d'Or rankings announced