The Ballon d'Or award is an annual football award for the best player from the previous year. Up until 1995 it was awarded only to football players from Europe and was generally known as the European Footballer of the Year award.

Below are the nominees in the final order after voting for the 1980 award. The winner was Karl-Heinz Rummenigge. See the list of all Ballon d'Or winners.

Final order for the men's 1980 Ballon d'Or

Order Player Club Nationality Points
1 Karl-Heinz Rummenigge Bayern Munich West Germany 122
2 Bernd Schuster Barcelona West Germany 34
3 Michel Platini Saint-Étienne France 33
4 Wilfried Van Moer Beveren Belgium 27
5 Jan Ceulemans Club Brugge Belgium 20
6 Horst Hrubesch Hamburger SV West Germany 18
7 Herbert Prohaska[notes 1] Internazionale Austria 14
8 Hansi Müller VfB Stuttgart West Germany 11
  Liam Brady Juventus Republic of Ireland 11
10 Manfred Kaltz Hamburger SV West Germany 10
11 Erwin Vandenbergh Lierse Belgium 9
  Luis Arconada Real Sociedad Spain 9
  Dino Zoff Juventus Italy 9
14 Kenny Dalglish Liverpool Scotland 5
  Bruno Pezzey[notes 2] Eintracht Frankfurt Austria 5
16 Terry McDermott Liverpool England 4
  Viv Anderson Nottingham Forest England 4
  Ruud Krol Napoli Netherlands 4
  Francesco Graziani Torino Italy 4
20 Ladislav Vízek Dukla Prague Czechoslovakia 3
  Manuel Bento Benfica Portugal 3
22 Frank Arnesen Ajax Denmark 2
  Antonín Panenka Bohemians 1905 Czechoslovakia 2
  David O'Leary Arsenal Republic of Ireland 2
  Vladimir Petrović Red Star Belgrade SFR Yugoslavia 2
  Zbigniew Boniek Widzew Łódź Poland 2
27 Giancarlo Antognoni Fiorentina Italy 1
  Alessandro Altobelli Internazionale Italy 1
  Marcel Răducanu Steaua București Romania 1
  Trevor Francis Nottingham Forest England 1
  Zdeněk Nehoda Dukla Prague Czechoslovakia 1
  Peter Shilton Nottingham Forest England 1