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The contest for the prestigious Golden Shoe is heating up as the current season approaches its midway point.

With a new winner in each of the last three campaigns, the award remains up for grabs. Premier League star Erling Haaland was the most recent Premier League-based striker to secure the award back in the 2022-23 season.

The prodigious Norwegian goal-scorer is back in the running this term, but faces stiff rivalry from German Bundesliga forward Harry Kane and Spanish La Liga phenomenon Kylian Mbappe. With plenty of matches left to play, other players still have an opportunity to enter the fray.

What is the Golden Shoe?

The Golden Boot award was inaugurated in the 1967-68 season by the French newspaper L'Equipe to honor the top scorer in domestic league matches from a European top division league.

Since the 1997-98 season, the prize has been overseen by European Sports Media, which implemented a weighted scoring system. Under this format, a player's tallies are weighted with a specific coefficient based on the strength ranking of their league.

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

For competitions ranked from sixth to twenty-second in UEFA rankings, 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 multiple instances in the past, a rule change 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 next deciding factor is the total of league assists, followed by the least penalties scored. Only if these criteria are used would the award be shared.

Who are the Primary Challengers?

As it stands, a three-way battle exists for the current season's Golden Shoe, with the three most recent winners split 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 just behind on 18 goals (36 points) in 18 La Liga matches.

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

Feyenoord striker Ayase Ueda is joint-fifth with 18 goals (27 points) from 17 Eredivisie fixtures this season.

The remainder of the current top ten is made up of players from leagues that function on a calendar year schedule.

Reviewing Past Winners

Throughout its nearly six-decade history, the Golden Shoe has been won by some of football's biggest names.

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

Argentine maestro Lionel Messi has secured the most Golden Shoes, collecting the award on six separate times during his long spell at FC Barcelona.

Messi established the record for highest tally in a campaign with 50 in 2011-12 (100 points). He also became the only player to date to win it in three straight seasons from 2016-17 to 2018-19.

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

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

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

Erling Haaland claimed the prize for the first time in 2022-23, scoring a Premier League record 36 goals (72 points). Harry Kane secured his first Golden Shoe with the identical total for Bayern Munich the next season.

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

Now, the same trio are competing at the top of the leaderboard again this campaign, with Kane presently leading the pack.