Bet on the PFA Player of the Year with BetFootball
Awarded to the best player(s) in England in a calendar year, the Player of the Year award is the epitome of the sport and every footballer hopes to bag the accolade at some point in their career.
The winner of the award is voted by the Professional Footballers’ Association in Wales and England, which constitutes about 5,000 members. It was first awarded during the 1973/74 season and the winners’ list has the who’s who of English football’s legendary players.
With the 2021 PFA Player of the Year betting closed, focus now turns to the 2022 award. Who will win next year’s award? Find the best player of the year betting tips here at BetFootball. For now, let’s have a little insight into what this event is all about.
What Is The PFA Player Of The Year Award?
The PFA Player of the Year Award was first dished out in the 1973/74 season. Since then, members of the Professional Footballer’s Association seat in spring each year and vote for player(s) – both men and women – who’ve had an outstanding season in English football. Traditionally, a staff of the PFA would be sent into clubs to get players to fill out forms over lunch after training. However, with COVID, the system changed and every vote has to be cast online.
The online voting form is as direct as it can be. Once a player enters his/her email address in the first section, they are two award sections they are required to pick from section two:
- PFA Young Player of the Year
- PFA Player Of The Year
In the third section, players are required to pick up to eleven players from their respective divisions. By doing so, they are nominating them into the Team of the Year award.
While every player from the four divisions votes for the main two awards, the instructions dictate that the “Team of the Year” vote should go to a player within your division. This explains why some footballers end up being shortlisted for the PFA player of the Year award but miss out on the Team of the Year – something that happened to Charlie Adam in 2011 and Eden Hazard in 2019.
*Note: Contenders of the PFA Young Player of the Year must be 23 years and under at the start of the season.
Also worth mentioning is the fact that in the last ten seasons only two players who’ve won the Premier League have been feted with the PFA Player of The Year award. N’Golo Kante in 2017 while playing for Chelsea and Riyad Mahrez in 2016 while playing for Leicester. If anything has to go by these statistics, it shows that the PFA award is not based on collective achievements, but on outstanding individual performance.
PFA Young Player Of The Year Award Odds
All players age 23 or under qualify to get nominated for the PFA Young Player of the Year award. Whoever receives the most votes from the Professional Footballers’ Association wins the award.
At the time of writing this, England dominates the list with the highest number of favourites. Six young Lions dominate the bookies under player of the year betting. These include United’s Greenwood, Arsenal’s Saka and Smith Rowe, Chelsea’s Reece James, and Crystal Palace’s Conor Gallagher.
However, despite winning this year’s award, 2022’s award, player of the year betting indicate that most people – and football betting sites at large – believe The Citizen’s Foden is still the favourite to win this award. And it’s not difficult to see why; he is looking forward to replicating the success he enjoyed last season.
Admittedly, missing the first three PL games is not likely going to impact the standings at the end of the season, but will certainly affect his contribution to the club. Nonetheless, if he stays fit and gets enough playtime, we strongly believe he’ll make up for the time lost watching from the sidelines.
Top 10 Best PFA Young Player of the Year Bets
| Phil Foden | 1/1 |
| Mason Greenwood | 4/1 |
| Bukayo Saka | 8/1 |
| Emile Smith-Rowe | 9/1 |
| Reece James | 10/1 |
| Jadon Sancho | 20/1 |
| Ferran Torres | 16/1 |
| Callum Hudson Adoi | 33/1 |
| Joe Willock | 33/1 |
| Tariq Lamptey | 33/1 |
*All odds and markets courtesy of William Hill and are correct as of date of publication
PFA Team Of The Year
The PFA Team of the Year – or the Team of the Year as it is sometimes referred to – is an annual award bestowed to a group of fifty-five (55) players across the top four leagues of English football. Like the Player of the Year and Young Player of the Year awards, the PFA Team of the Year was introduced in the 1973/74 season.
Since then, Peter Shilton has made the most appearances in the top tier – with 10 appearances – and Steven Gerrard holds the most appearances in the modern-day Premier League era. In 2014, the first team comprising of female players in the FA WSL was included in this category.
PFA Player Of The Year Odds
Prior to the 2020-21 season, PFA player of the year betting strongly suggested Kevin De Bruyneto scoop the PFA Player of The Year award for a third time on the bounce.
William Hill’s PFA player of the year betting, for example, had him at 7/2 to win the award, ahead of Manchester United’s Christiano Ronaldo and Chelsea’s Romelu Lukaku, who were all placed at 7/1 and 7/2 respectively.
But things have so far changed. Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah has had an incredible year and is adding to that by scoring in nine successive matches this season. The Egyptian cum Liverpool winger is now the hottest ticket in town and is tipped to bag two of the highest-rated accolades in Europe, including the PFA’s Player of the Year and the Ballon d’Or.
The Egyptian recently bagged an assist and scored a hattrick in an entertaining 5-0 win against their bitter rivals – Manchester United. The goals scored have seen him tip the scales in PFA player of the year betting to land the award at 5/6 at William Hill.
Will he take Liverpool all the way to the Premier League glory? Just maybe. Bet365 has placed The Reds at 11/4 to win the league – second favourites – but if Salah gets off to a flyer against Brighton, expect both the player of the year betting price and to win the league to disappear.
Top 10 Best Bets for PFA Player of the Year
| Mohamed Salah | 8/11 |
| Cristiano Ronaldo | 8/1 |
| Kevin De Bruyne | 9/1 |
| Phil Foden | 12/1 |
| Jack Grealish | 14/1 |
| Romelu Lukaku | 14/1 |
| Bernardo Silva | 20/1 |
| Bruno Fernandes | 20/1 |
| Mason Mount | 20/1 |
| Harry Kane | 28/1 |
*All odds and markets courtesy of William Hill and are correct as of date of publication
Notable Previous PFA Player of the Year Winners
City’s midfielder Kevin De Bruyne beat a clutch of his teammates, Tottenham’s Harry Kane and Manchester United’s Bruno Fernandes to win the 2021 men’s PFA Player’s Player of the Year.
The Citizen’s talisman and playmaker De Bruyne, 30, pipped team-mates Ilkay Gündogan, Phil Foden, and Ruben Dias to receive the honour for the second time in a row, after winning in the 2019-20 season. By doing so, he joins the likes of Gareth Bale, Cristiano Ronaldo, Alan Shearer, Mark Hughes and Arsenal’s all-time goal scorer, Thierry Henry.
Shearer, however, stands out from the list as there’s no other player to have been awarded the PFA Player of the Year with two different teams. The Premier League’s all-time top scorer first won the award while playing for Blackburn before successfully defending it at his hometown club, Newcastle.
PFA Player of the Year Winners Since 2011
| Gareth Bale | Tottenham Hotspur | 2010–11 |
| Robin Van Persie | Arsenal | 2011–12 |
| Luis Suárez | Liverpool | 2013–14 |
| Eden Hazard | Chelsea | 2014–15 |
| Riyad Mahrez | Leicester City | 2015–16 |
| N’Golo Kanté | Chelsea | 2016–17 |
| Mohamed Salah | Liverpool | 2017–18 |
| Virgil van Dijk | Liverpool | 2018–19 |
| Kevin De Bruyne | Manchester City | 2019–20 |
| Kevin De Bruyne | Manchester City | 2020–21 |
Player of the Year Betting – Summary
A trip down PFA Player of the Year awards shows that even winning this coveted accolade once is a career-defining fete. So far, Manchester City and Liverpool have formed a duopoly over the last decade of dominating the list of contenders, and moving into 2022, it seems either of the teams is going to produce the winner again. Will Mo Salah steal the title from under De Bruyne’s nose or will he successfully defend it for the third time? No one has ever accomplished this, but it’s not impossible. Visit William Hill and back him if you strongly believe he will achieve this!
