PFA Merit Award

Fara Williams and Dean Lewington are the most recent honorees in 2024

The Professional Footballers' Association Merit Award (often called the PFA Merit Award, or simply the Merit Award) is an award given by the Professional Footballers' Association (the PFA) for meritorious service to football. ^[1]

The award was first given in 1974, and was won (jointly) by Bobby Charlton and Cliff Lloyd. The first woman to win the award was Steph Houghton in 2019. In 2022, the award was separated into two: women's and men's.

The most recent winners of the award are Fara Williams and Dean Lewington.

List of winners

1970s

Year	Winner(s)	Note
1974	Sir Bobby Charlton CBE, OBE	First winners of the award
	Cliff Lloyd
1975	Denis Law CBE	First winner of the award from outside England
1976	George Eastham OBE
1977	Jack Taylor OBE
1978	Bill Shankly OBE
1979	Sir Tom Finney OBE

1980s

Year	Winner(s)	Notes
1980	Sir Matt Busby OBE
1981	John Trollope MBE
1982	Joe Mercer OBE
1983	Bob Paisley OBE
1984	Bill Nicholson OBE
1985	Ron Greenwood CBE
1986	England World Cup squad 1966
1987	Sir Stanley Matthews CBE
1988	Billy Bonds MBE
1989	Nat Lofthouse OBE

1990s

Year	Winner(s)	Notes
1990	Peter Shilton OBE
1991	Tommy Hutchison
1992	Brian Clough OBE
1993	Manchester United European Cup squad 1968	Shay Brennan and Tony Dunne Joint first winner of the award from outside Great Britain Joint first winner of the award from outside the United Kingdom
	Eusébio	Joint first winner of the award from outside Great Britain Joint first winner of the award from outside the United Kingdom
1994	Billy Bingham MBE
1995	Gordon Strachan OBE
1996	Pelé	First winner of the award from outside Europe
1997	Peter Beardsley MBE
1998	Steve Ogrizovic
1999	Tony Ford MBE

2000s

Year	Winner(s)	Notes
2000	Gary Mabbutt MBE
2001	Jimmy Hill OBE
2002	Niall Quinn
2003	Sir Bobby Robson CBE
2004	Dario Gradi MBE
2005	Shaka Hislop CM
2006	George Best
2007	Sir Alex Ferguson CBE
2008	Jimmy Armfield OBE
2009	John McDermott

2010s

Year	Winner(s)	Notes
2010	Lucas Radebe
2011	Howard Webb
2012	Graham Alexander
2013	Manchester United Class of '92
2014	Donald Bell VC
2015	Steven Gerrard MBE [2]
	Frank Lampard OBE [2]
2016	Ryan Giggs OBE [3]
2017	David Beckham OBE
2018	Cyrille Regis MBE [4]
2019	Steph Houghton MBE [5]	First female to receive award.

2020s

Year	Winner(s)	Notes
2020	Marcus Rashford MBE [6]
2021	Gordon Taylor OBE [7]
2022	Roy Hodgson CBE [8]
	Hope Powell OBE [9]	First time men's and women's PFA Merit awards were separated
2023	Ian Wright OBE [10]
	Jill Scott MBE [10]
2024	Dean Lewington
	Fara Williams MBE

Breakdown of winners

Winners by country

Country	Number of wins
England	37
Scotland	7
Northern Ireland	2
Trinidad and Tobago	1
Italy
Republic of Ireland
Brazil
Portugal
South Africa
Wales

References

1. PFA Merit Award 1974-2007 Archived 15 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine
2. "Gerrard & Lampard share PFA Merit Award". Goal.com. 26 April 2015. Retrieved 26 April 2015.
3. Sports, PA. "Ryan Giggs wins PFA Merit award". thepfa.com. Archived from the original on 9 May 2016. Retrieved 25 April 2016.
4. "PFA Merit Award winner Cyrille Regis". thepfa.com. Archived from the original on 9 May 2018. Retrieved 8 May 2018.
5. "PFA Merit Award winner Steph Houghton". thepfa.com. Retrieved 29 April 2019.
6. "Rashford wins PFA Award". manutd.com. Manchester United. 8 September 2020. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
7. "Gordon Taylor receives PFA merit award for his services to football". sportsmole.co.uk. Sports Mole. 6 June 2021. Retrieved 7 June 2021.
8. "Roy Hodgson wins PFA Merit Award". PFA. 9 June 2021. Retrieved 30 August 2023.
9. "Hope Powell wins PFA Merit Award". PFA. 9 June 2021. Retrieved 30 August 2023.
10. "Rachel Daly and Erling Haaland win PFA player of the year awards". The Guardian. 29 August 2023. Retrieved 30 August 2023.

External links

• The Official Website of the Professional Footballer's Association