PFA Footballer of the Year: Football Winners and African Records

The PFA footballer of the year usually means the PFA Players’ Player of the Year, an award chosen by fellow professional footballers. Mohamed Salah won the 2024/25 edition for Liverpool, becoming its first three time winner. The live award module identifies the latest completed edition and the next confirmed shortlist.

For football and soccer supporters across Africa, the distinction matters when several individual awards arrive around the same season. A viewing centre argument can start with the right player and the wrong trophy. Readers in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and South Africa tend to follow the award through highlights shows and shared phone alerts, while Egyptian and Algerian fans have long followed Salah and Mahrez with particular pride. The Premier League connection brings familiar shirts into that argument, and the two African winners give readers their own place in the record book.

Who Won the Latest PFA Award, and Who Is Shortlisted Next?

The live award module above gives the latest winner and any officially announced shortlist, with each entry attached to its season. Read that season label before comparing names: a nomination recognises a particular campaign, while the announcement may come after its final match. The historical winners table below closes at 2024/25, when Salah won for Liverpool. It provides a dated reference rather than making a permanent claim about which award ceremony happened most recently.

An empty shortlist field should mean that confirmed nominees have not yet been supplied, rather than that particular players have been excluded. Predictions belong separately from announced nominations. For readers following Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda or South Africa, check the confirmed names for both national team representation and family connections. Those are different relationships, and a player with Nigerian heritage should not automatically be described as a Super Eagles international.

A simple routine makes the module easier to read. First, note the season label. Second, check whether an entry is a winner or a nominee. Third, look at the club and nationality columns to see whether an African connection comes through a national team, a club shirt or family heritage. Egypt and Algeria supplied the two African winners through 2024/25, and the module shows whether any later edition widens that picture to include players from West, East or Southern Africa.

Who Has Won the PFA Players’ Player Award by Season?

Norman Hunter of Leeds United won the first award for 1973/74, beginning the historical list below. Each row gives the season recognised, the winner’s club during that campaign, a broad playing position and international affiliation. The season matters more than the ceremony’s calendar year when comparing achievements. A player’s later transfer does not change the club attached to an earlier award, just as a later international appearance does not rewrite the campaign being honoured.

The list also shows why this is more than a forwards’ prize. Pat Jennings won as Tottenham Hotspur’s goalkeeper in 1975/76, and Peter Shilton followed with Nottingham Forest in 1977/78. Their entries belong beside the attacking names that dominate many supporters’ memories. Positions are simplified for comparison because footballers can perform several roles within a season. Nationality here follows senior international representation, rather than attempting to compress birthplace and family history into one label.

Who Votes, and How Do the Other Football Awards Differ?

Members of the Professional Footballers’ Association vote for the Players’ Player of the Year, making it recognition from fellow professionals. The PFA is the players’ trade union in England and Wales, founded in 1907. The voting description used for this historical guide gives members two selections. That is the useful distinction behind the trophy: the electorate consists of footballers, including opponents who have experienced the movement and decision making that supporters assess from the stands or television.

The Football Writers’ Association Footballer of the Year is chosen by journalists and began in 1948, before the PFA award’s introduction in 1973/74. The Premier League Player of the Season is a separate Premier League award. In a compact comparison, the PFA award comes from players and the FWA award comes from football writers. A player can win several, but winning one does not automatically confer either of the others.

A vote by professionals can reward work that is easy to miss from a distance. Defenders and goalkeepers such as Hunter, Jennings, Shilton and Virgil van Dijk sit in the roll of honour, and so does N’Golo Kanté, who won for Chelsea in 2016/17 as a midfielder whose winning of the ball and tireless covering of ground were felt most by the players facing him. Kanté represents France, and his family roots in Mali are a reminder of how many African stories run through English club football even when the international column shows a European nation.

Who Has Won Most Often, and Which Clubs Lead?

Mohamed Salah became the record holder with three wins, for Liverpool in 2017/18, 2021/22 and 2024/25. Those dates matter because his recognition stretches across distinct campaigns rather than one uninterrupted voting run. Liverpool won the Premier League in 2024/25, the setting for his third award. For supporters who call him the Egyptian King, the record gives a precise answer to the familiar question about how often his fellow players have chosen him.

Manchester United led the club totals with 11 awards through 2024/25, followed by Liverpool with 10. Count winning seasons rather than different individuals: repeat winners contribute each time they receive the trophy. Cristiano Ronaldo’s Manchester United awards in 2006/07 and 2007/08 therefore count separately, as do Salah’s Liverpool victories. Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur each had five awards across the same historical period. These are dated totals, so later editions should be checked against the records module.

Club totals are best read as a story of eras. Liverpool’s early entries came with Terry McDermott, Kenny Dalglish and Ian Rush in the years from 1979/80 to 1983/84, and the club’s recent entries carry an African thread through Salah. Manchester United’s run is spread across the 1988/89 to 2009/10 period, which gives supporters a long span to debate. A tally on its own does not say which style of play was honoured, so use the table to see the position and nationality attached to each year.

Which African and Diaspora Players Have Won or Been Nominated?

Riyad Mahrez and Mohamed Salah were the only African winners of the main award through 2024/25. Algeria international Mahrez won with Leicester City in 2015/16, the season the club became Premier League champions after starting at odds of 5000 to 1. Egypt international Salah followed in 2017/18, 2021/22 and 2024/25. Those achievements place African footballers inside the award’s central history, with Salah setting the overall record rather than only an African benchmark.

The Nigerian connection in the wider title story was Ahmed Musa’s subsequent move to Leicester in 2016. Keep that chronology straight: Musa joined after the championship season, so he should not be described as a member of its title winning squad.

Through 2024/25, no senior international representing Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda or South Africa had won the main prize. Heritage and international representation are separate things, and each deserves its own accurate description.

The two African winners also offer a useful contrast in style. Mahrez was a wide attacker who drifted inside onto his favoured foot and set the tempo of Leicester’s counter attacks, while Salah has worked from the right of the front line, cutting in to finish and create. Mahrez later captained Algeria to the Africa Cup of Nations title in 2019, which links his club recognition to continental success. Readers who follow the Pharaohs and the Desert Foxes can therefore trace both men from the Premier League table of honours back to the national colours they wear.

How Does the PFA Young Player Award Work?

The PFA Young Player of the Year recognises eligible younger professionals through a separate players’ vote. It began in 1973/74, when Ipswich Town defender Kevin Beattie won the inaugural award.

Being eligible for the Young award does not prevent a player from winning the main prize. The categories answer different questions: one recognises the players’ choice across the full field, while the other applies an age limit. Nigeria’s connection includes Dele Alli, an England international with Nigerian heritage, whose Young awards came in 2015/16 and 2016/17. Saka won the Young award for 2022/23. Neither achievement should be entered as a victory in the main winners table.

For African supporters, the Young award is often where a diaspora story first appears in the records. Bukayo Saka, an England international of Nigerian heritage, is a good example of a player whose family link to Nigeria is widely celebrated even though his senior international colours are English. The same care applies to every name that appears: check the nationality column for the team a player represents, and treat heritage as a separate and warmly noted connection.

When Are the Votes, Shortlist and Winner Announced?

The PFA timetable can vary from year to year, so neither an April shortlist nor a spring ceremony is a permanent rule. Voting, shortlist publication and the presentation are separate stages, and the live module should identify each confirmed date independently. This also explains why an award announced after the season still belongs to the campaign printed beside the winner’s name.

For an announced ceremony or broadcast, read the supplied time in GMT, WAT, SAST and EAT together. A ceremony listed at 12:00 GMT would be 13:00 WAT, 14:00 SAST and 15:00 EAT, and CAT shares SAST’s clock time. Accra keeps GMT all year, Lagos runs one hour ahead on WAT, Johannesburg two hours ahead on SAST, and Nairobi and Kampala three hours ahead on EAT. British summer time can affect conversions from a UK listing, so use the dated local time rather than assuming every British announcement is already in GMT.

Who Won Both Awards or Retained the Main Trophy?

Andy Gray, Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale won the main and Young awards in the same season. Gray achieved that combination with Aston Villa in 1976/77, Ronaldo with Manchester United in 2006/07, and Bale with Tottenham Hotspur in 2012/13. Other footballers have won both at different stages of their careers. The distinction matters when a discussion describes someone as a double winner: ask whether it means two trophies in one campaign or honours accumulated across several seasons.

Through 2024/25, the players who retained the main award in consecutive seasons were Thierry Henry in 2002/03 and 2003/04, Ronaldo in 2006/07 and 2007/08, and Kevin De Bruyne in 2019/20 and 2020/21. Salah’s three victories were separated by other winners, as were Mark Hughes’s wins in 1988/89 and 1990/91. Before comparing another individual honour, use the football guides to check its electorate, eligibility and season label.