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The competition for the European Golden Shoe is intensifying as the current season nears its midway point.

With a new winner in every one of the past three campaigns, the award remains up for grabs. Manchester City star Erling Haaland was the most recent Premier League-based player to secure the trophy back in the 2022-23 season.

The prodigious Norwegian goal-scorer is back in the running this term, but encounters formidable competition from Bayern Munich forward Harry Kane and Spanish La Liga superstar Kylian Mbappe. With plenty of matches left to play, other players still have time to enter the fray.

What is the European Golden Shoe Award?

The European Golden Shoe was first launched in the 1967-68 by the France-based newspaper L'Equipe to recognize the highest scorer in domestic league matches from a European top division league.

Since the 1997-98 season, the award has been administered by European Sports Media, which implemented a weighted points system. Under this method, a player's tallies are multiplied by a specific coefficient based on the UEFA coefficient of their league.

Goals scored in Europe's top five leagues—the Premier League, Spanish La Liga, German Bundesliga, Serie A, and Ligue 1—are valued at two points each.

For competitions ranked from sixth to twenty-second in UEFA's list, such as the Portuguese Primeira Liga, goals are worth one and a half points. Goals in all other European leagues are worth one point.

While the honor has been shared on several occasions in the past, a regulation update from the 2019-20 season dictates that in the case of a tie, the award goes to the player with the least minutes played.

If the tie remains, the subsequent tiebreaker is the number of league assists, followed by the least penalties scored. Only after these tiebreakers are used would the prize be split.

Who are the Leading Challengers?

As it stands, a three-way tussle is underway for the current season's Golden Shoe, with the three most recent winners split by just a solitary goal.

• Harry Kane (England captain) leads with 19 goals (38 points) from 15 Bundesliga fixtures.
• Erling Haaland also has 19 goals (38 points) from 17 Premier League appearances.
• Kylian Mbappe sits one back on 18 goals (36 points) in 18 La Liga games.

In fourth place is Darko Lemajic of Latvia's club RFS, who has scored 28 goals (28 points) across the club's 36 league games in 2025.

Feyenoord forward Ayase Ueda is tied for fifth with 18 goals (27 points) from 17 Eredivisie matches this season.

The rest of the top 10 is made up of players from leagues that function on a calendar year schedule.

A Look at Past Winners

Throughout its 59-year existence, the Golden Shoe has been awarded to some of football's biggest legends.

Portuguese icon Eusebio won the inaugural trophy in 1968, scoring 42 goals for SL Benfica. He then won the award for a second time in the 1972-73.

Argentine maestro Lionel Messi has won the most Golden Shoes, claiming the honor on six times during his 17-year tenure at FC Barcelona.

Messi established the benchmark for most goals in a single season with 50 in 2011-12 (100 points). He also became the first and only player to ever to win it in three straight seasons from 2016 to 2019.

Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo claimed his first award in the 2007-08 with Manchester United before going on to win it on three further occasions with Real Madrid.

The first player to win the award while at an English club was Liverpool's Ian Rush in 1983-84, when he scored thirty-two goals for Liverpool FC.

The award has seen a new winner in each of the last three seasons.

Erling Haaland claimed the award for the first time in 2022-23, scoring a Premier League record-equaling thirty-six goals (72 points). Harry Kane earned his maiden Golden Shoe with the same goal tally for Bayern Munich the following season.

Kylian Mbappe is the current holder of the award after scoring 31 goals (62 points) for Real Madrid in 2024-25.

Now, the same trio are competing at the summit of the leaderboard again this campaign, with Kane currently leading the way.