{"id":942882,"date":"2026-10-27T15:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T15:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/942882\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T15:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T15:40:12","slug":"arise-sir-harry-downing-street-hints-at-kane-knighthood-after-ballon-dor-win-harry-kane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/942882\/","title":{"rendered":"Arise, Sir Harry? Downing Street hints at Kane knighthood after Ballon d\u2019Or win | Harry Kane"},"content":{"rendered":"

Downing Street has hinted that Harry Kane deserves a knighthood, praising the footballer\u2019s \u201cextraordinary achievement\u201d as the first English winner of the Ballon d\u2019Or<\/a> in 25 years.<\/p>\n

The prime minister\u2019s spokesperson said Andy Burnham sent praise and congratulation to the England<\/a> captain, who was announced as the men\u2019s winner of football\u2019s most prestigious individual award at a ceremony on Monday night.<\/p>\n

Number 10 said they hoped it would be the prelude to a trophy to celebrate with England \u201cbefore too long\u201d \u2013 alluding to hopes of an England win when the country co-hosts the Euros in 2028 with Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland.<\/p>\n

The Bayern Munich player is the first Englishman to win the award since Michael Owen in 2001. \u201cThe PM would like to congratulate Harry Kane<\/a> on winning the Ballon d\u2019Or,\u201d the spokesperson said. \u201cTo be the first Englishman to win it in 25 years is an extraordinary achievement, and what a moment to do it here at home.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeventy years after Sir Stanley Matthews won the inaugural award, it caps a remarkable season and Harry continues to set a brilliant example to young players across the country, and the PM knows the whole nation will be incredibly proud of him. And, hopefully, there\u2019s another trophy to celebrate with England before too long.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked whether Burnham would like to see Kane receive a knighthood, she said: \u201cI think everyone would agree, Harry Kane has given an enormous amount to English football, and this is a very special moment for him and the country, but, as ever, I\u2019m not going to pre-empt the honours process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kane received the award at a ceremony at the London Palladium on Monday night, beating Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 of Real Madrid and Barcelona\u2019s Lamine Yamal.<\/p>\n

He is the fifth English player to win the award, the list also including Kevin Keegan and Sir Bobby Charlton.<\/p>\n

Burnham cannot decide whether to hand Kane a knighthood, but ministers and departments can make recommendations to the honours committee, as can private individuals. The sport committee includes the presenter Sue Barker and the chief executive of the Football Foundation, Robert Sullivan.<\/p>\n

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Kane holds an MBE, awarded after England\u2019s success in reaching the semi-finals in the 2018 World Cup. Players are often not awarded knighthoods until after retirement. The former England captain Sir David Beckham received his knighthood last year, as did the former England player and manager Sir Gareth Southgate.<\/p>\n

Before those awards, the most recent was the Scottish player and Liverpool manager Sir Kenny Dalglish. Owen, also a former Liverpool player, has not received a knighthood, and nor did Keegan, the former Newcastle player and manager who was also England\u2019s captain and manager.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Downing Street has hinted that Harry Kane deserves a knighthood, praising the footballer\u2019s \u201cextraordinary achievement\u201d as the first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":942883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-942882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=942882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/942883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=942882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=942882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=942882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}