The contest for the prestigious Golden Shoe is reaching a fever pitch as the current season approaches its halfway mark.
With a new winner in every one of the previous three campaigns, the award remains wide open. Manchester City star Erling Haaland was the last Premier League-based player to secure the award back in the 2022-23 season.
The prodigious Norwegian striker is back in the running this season, but encounters tough rivalry from Bayern Munich marksman Harry Kane and Spanish La Liga phenomenon Kylian Mbappe. With plenty of matches remaining, other talents still have an opportunity to enter the contest.
The European Golden Shoe was first launched in the 1967-68 by the France-based publication L'Equipe to honor the leading goalscorer in league matches from a European top-flight league.
Since the 1997-98 season, the award has been administered by European Sports Media, which introduced a points-based scoring system. Under this format, a player's goals are multiplied by a designated multiplier based on the strength ranking of their domestic competition.
Goals scored in the continent's top five leagues—the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, German Bundesliga, Italian Serie A, and French Ligue 1—are valued at two points apiece.
For leagues ranked sixth to 22nd in UEFA list, such as the Portuguese Primeira Liga, goals are worth 1.5 points. Goals in all other European leagues are worth one point.
While the honor has been shared on several instances in the past, a rule change from the 2019-20 dictates that in the case of a points tie, the trophy goes to the player with the least minutes played.
If the tie persists, the subsequent deciding factor is the number of league assists, followed by the least penalties scored. Only if these tiebreakers are exhausted would the award be split.
Currently, a three-way race exists for the 2025-26 Golden Shoe, with the three most recent winners separated by just a single goal.
In fourth place is Darko Lemajic of Latvia's club RFS, who has netted 28 goals (28 points) across their 36 league games in 2025.
Feyenoord forward Ayase Ueda is joint-fifth with 18 goals (27 points) from 17 Eredivisie matches this term.
The rest of the current top ten is made up of players from leagues that function on a calendar year schedule.
Throughout its 59-year existence, the Golden Shoe has been claimed by some of football's most iconic stars.
Portuguese icon Eusebio claimed the first-ever trophy in 1968, scoring forty-two goals for SL Benfica. He later won the award for a second time in the 1972-73 season.
Argentine legend Lionel Messi has secured the record number of Golden Shoes, collecting the honor on six separate occasions during his 17-year tenure at Barcelona.
Messi established the benchmark for highest tally in a single season with fifty in 2011-12 (100 points). He also became the only player to ever to win it in three straight seasons from 2016-17 to 2018-19.
Portuguese megastar Cristiano Ronaldo first won award in the 2007-08 season with Manchester United before proceeding to win it three more times with Real Madrid.
The first player to win the award while at an English club was Ian Rush in 1983-84, when he netted thirty-two goals for Liverpool FC.
The award has seen a new winner in each of the last three seasons.
Erling Haaland scooped 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 identical total 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 summit of the standings again this campaign, with Kane presently leading the way.
