🔗 Share this article

The contest for the Golden Boot trophy is reaching a fever pitch as the current season approaches its midway point.

With a new winner in each of the last three campaigns, the award remains highly contested. Manchester City star Erling Haaland was the most recent Premier League-based forward to win the trophy back in 2022-23.

The prodigious Norwegian striker is once again in the mix this term, but encounters formidable rivalry from German Bundesliga marksman Harry Kane and Spanish La Liga phenomenon Kylian Mbappe. With many matches remaining, other talents still have time to enter the contest.

Understanding the European Golden Shoe Award?

The Golden Boot award was inaugurated in the 1967-68 by the France-based publication L'Equipe to celebrate the leading goalscorer in domestic league matches from a European top-flight league.

Since the 1997-98 season, the award has been overseen by European Sports Media, which introduced a points-based points system. Under this format, a player's tallies are multiplied by a designated multiplier based on the UEFA coefficient of their league.

Goals scored in the continent's five major leagues—the English Premier League, La Liga, German Bundesliga, Italian Serie A, and 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 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 regulation update from the 2019-20 season dictates that in the event of a points tie, the award goes to the player with the least minutes played.

If the tie remains, 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 shared.

Who are the Leading Contenders?

Currently, a three-horse battle exists for the current season's Golden Shoe, with the trio of previous winners separated by just a solitary goal.

• Harry Kane (English captain) leads with 19 goals (38 points) from 15 Bundesliga matches.
• 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 matches.

In fourth is RFS striker 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 tied for fifth with 18 goals (27 points) from 17 Eredivisie fixtures this term.

The remainder of the top 10 is comprised of players from leagues that function on a January-to-December schedule.

A Look at Previous Winners

Throughout its nearly six-decade existence, the Golden Shoe has been awarded to some of football's most iconic legends.

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 won the record number of Golden Shoes, collecting the honor on six occasions during his long spell 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 only player to date to win it in three consecutive seasons from 2016-17 to 2018-19.

Portuguese megastar Cristiano Ronaldo claimed his first award in the 2007-08 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 Liverpool's Ian Rush in 1983-84, when he scored 32 goals for Liverpool FC.

The prize has seen a different winner in every one of the past three seasons.

Erling Haaland scooped the prize for the first time in 2022-23, scoring a Premier League record thirty-six goals (72 points). Harry Kane earned his first Golden Shoe with the same total for Bayern Munich the following year.

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

Now, the same three players are vying at the summit of the leaderboard again this season, with Kane presently out in front the pack.