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

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

The prolific Norwegian goal-scorer is once again in the hunt this campaign, but faces stiff competition from Bayern Munich forward Harry Kane and Spanish La Liga phenomenon Kylian Mbappe. With many games remaining, other talents still have time to throw their hat into the fray.

What is the European Golden Shoe Award?

The Golden Boot award was introduced in the 1967-68 by the French publication L'Equipe to recognize the top goalscorer in 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 multiplier based on the strength ranking of their domestic competition.

Goals scored in the continent's five major leagues—the Premier League, Spanish La Liga, German Bundesliga, Italian Serie A, and French Ligue 1—are worth two points apiece.

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

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

If the deadlock remains, the subsequent tiebreaker is the number of league assists, followed by the least penalties scored. Only after these criteria are exhausted would the award be shared.

Identifying the Main Contenders?

At present, a three-horse race exists for the current season's Golden Shoe, with the trio of most recent winners separated by just a solitary goal.

• Harry Kane (English 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 Latvian side RFS, who has scored 28 goals (28 points) across their 36 league games in 2025.

Dutch side Feyenoord striker 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 Previous Winners

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

Portuguese icon Eusebio claimed the first-ever trophy in 1968, scoring 42 goals for SL Benfica. He later won the award for a second time in the 1972-73 season.

Argentine legend Lionel Messi has won the record number of Golden Shoes, collecting the award on six occasions during his 17-year tenure at Barcelona.

Messi set the record for highest tally in a single season with 50 in 2011-12 (100 points). He also became the only player to date to win it in three successive seasons from 2016 to 2019.

Portuguese megastar Cristiano Ronaldo claimed his first award in the 2007-08 season with Man Utd before proceeding to win it three more times 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 prize has seen a different winner in each of the past three seasons.

Erling Haaland won the prize for the first time in 2022-23, scoring a Premier League record-equaling thirty-six goals (72 points). Harry Kane secured his first Golden Shoe with the same goal tally for Bayern Munich the next year.

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

Now, the same three players are competing at the top of the standings once more this campaign, with Kane currently out in front the pack.