Declan Rice: Arsenal's Premier League Champion and Ballon d'Or Contender

Declan Rice has just powered Arsenal to a first Premier League title in 22 years, dragged them through a season of high‑wire pressure and become the heartbeat of Mikel Arteta’s side. Talk of the Ballon d’Or was always going to follow.

Some are already pushing the idea hard: if Arsenal’s record £105 million signing can carry that authority onto the international stage and drive England to glory in North America this summer, why shouldn’t he be in the Golden Ball conversation in 2026?

Robbie Fowler isn’t buying it. Not yet.

Rice the catalyst, not the finished article

Since arriving from West Ham in 2023 for that then British record fee, Rice has barely missed a beat. Almost ever-present, he has turned Arsenal’s midfield from a promising structure into a title-winning engine room. He has been the missing piece, the one that allowed Arteta’s intricate jigsaw to finally lock into place and bring the Premier League trophy back to north London.

He has also become the symbol of Arsenal’s leap. A domestic champion now, and a whisker away from a famous double, he helped push the club to the brink of a historic season, only to suffer Champions League final heartbreak. That contrast – dominance at home, pain in Europe – hangs over any early Ballon d’Or talk.

Even so, the numbers around his reputation are moving. In the 2025 Ballon d’Or vote he finished down in 27th, a respectable foothold for a player who, at that stage, had not yet lifted major silverware with his club. Now he has a league title in his pocket and a growing sense that this is only the start.

Gerrard comparison draws a hard line

The Ballon d’Or debate often needs a reference point. For many in England, that benchmark is Steven Gerrard – a midfielder who finished third in the 2005 vote, carried Liverpool to Istanbul and set a brutal standard for all-round influence.

Fowler, speaking exclusively to GOAL courtesy of BetMGM, reached for that exact comparison when asked if Rice can become a perennial Golden Ball contender.

“I like Declan Rice,” he said. “I think when we talk about Declan Rice and how good he is, you compare him, obviously, to the likes of Stevie G. If I'm being honest, I don't think he's Steven's level. That's not me being all Liverpool. I think Declan Rice, since he's gone to Arsenal, he has become a more complete player. But I don't think he's the level that Steven Gerrard is just yet. Look, Steven Gerrard never won the Ballon d'Or.”

It was a pointed reminder. If a peak Gerrard, dragging Liverpool to impossible comebacks, could only climb to third, the bar for a central midfielder to actually win the award is ferociously high.

Fowler wasn’t finished.

“It is what it is in terms of his performances. He's been great for Arsenal and he's obviously gone up a notch. But I think he needs to go up another notch, if I'm being genuine in terms of his performances. It does sound like I'm having a little bit of a go, but I'm not. I think Declan Rice is a fantastic player, but I don't think he's on the realms of the Ballon d'Or list just yet.”

That’s the crux: Rice has surged, but in Fowler’s eyes he still stands a rung or two below the very top shelf.

England’s hopes, Rice’s ceiling

England, meanwhile, are staring at a 60-year wait for a major trophy and clinging to players who might finally break the spell. Rice sits at the centre of that hope. He is widely viewed as a future national team captain, the sort of steady, authoritative presence around whom managers build tournament plans.

If he can take the dominance he has shown at Arsenal and impose it on a global stage – if he can be the anchor in a side that goes all the way in North America – the Ballon d’Or narrative changes quickly. A global crown with the Three Lions would rocket him up any list of candidates and go some way to erasing the sting of that Champions League final defeat.

For now, though, the picture is clear. Rice is a champion, a leader in the making, and one of the defining signings of the Arteta era. He is also, by his own admission, not yet in Gerrard’s bracket. The Kingston upon Thames native has never been one to shy away from a challenge, and this might be the biggest of his career: to turn admiration into inevitability, to convert potential into the kind of dominance that forces Ballon d’Or voters to take notice.

Is Golden Ball glory in his future? The stage is set. The next act belongs to Rice.