Congratulations to Erling Haaland and Sam Kerr for becoming our Footballer of the Year and Women’s Footballer of the Year.
Haaland won by a huge margin after his sensational debut season in England, scoring 51 goals so far for Manchester City as they aim for a remarkable treble. For a while he was neck and neck with Bukayo Saka in the voting among our 800 or so members, but eventually won by a landslide, polling 82 per cent of the votes, the biggest margin since the Premier League began.
Saka’s Arsenal colleague Martin Odegaard came third in the polling, with Kevin De Bruyne of City fourth and Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford fifth. 14 other players received votes
Chelsea striker Kerr becomes the first back-to-back winner of the Women’s Footballer of the Year. The Australian polled twice as many votes as Rachel Daly of Aston Villa and England, who edged out Chelsea’s Lauren James (four votes). In total 25 different players got votes in the WFOTY poll.
Haaland told Manchester City’s official website: “To win the Football Writers’ Association award in my first season in English football is an honour. I try every single day to be the best I can be, and to be recognised like this means a lot to me.
“I have loved my time at City so far – my teammates are incredible, and they provide me with the chances to score goals. I want to thank all of them, because I could not have won this award without them.
“I also owe so much to Pep and the team behind the team here at City. Everybody has been so good to me since I joined and I have never worked with such top professionals.
“Thank you to everyone who voted for me. It’s a real honour to have won this award. I am now focused on ensuring I finish the season as strongly as possible and helping City win trophies.”
Sam Kerr said: “I’m really honoured to win the award. A lot of people still doubt me, no matter how many goals I score, how much I do for the team, how many big games I score in. That kind of fires me up.
“So thank-you very much to the people that voted for me, I could not do it without this amazing team. It’s very humbling, and Emma Hayes tells me all the time what an amazing award it is, so I’m very proud to win it.”
Both players will receive their awards at the Landmark Hotel London on Thursday May 25 at a special Footballer of the Year dinner, marking the 75th anniversary of the award, first won by Sir Stanley Matthews in 1948. More details on the history of the award and past winners can be found here: https://footballwriters.co.uk/awards/
