BBC Sport unveils inaugural Football Awards winners for 2025-26 season
Declan Rice and Khadija Shaw lead the list of honours voted for by pundits and journalists across the Premier League, Women’s Super League, Scottish Premiership, and EFL.
BBC Sport has announced the winners of its inaugural end-of-season Football Awards for the 2025-26 campaign, marking the broadcaster’s first formal recognition of excellence across English and Scottish football. The accolades were determined by a vote from a panel comprising expert pundits, journalists, and specialist football programme makers, including notable figures such as Chris Sutton, Danny Murphy, and Shay Given.
In the Premier League, Declan Rice was named Player of the Season after leading Arsenal to their first league title since 2004. Rice’s leadership and set-piece expertise were credited with helping the club overcome three successive second-placed finishes. Mikel Arteta was subsequently named Manager of the Year, having guided Arsenal to the top of the table from October and to the Champions League final against Paris Saint-Germain.
The Women’s Super League saw Manchester City secure their first title in a decade, with Khadija Shaw taking the Player of the Season award. The Jamaican striker scored 21 goals in 22 matches, receiving more than 80% of the vote. Her manager, Andree Jeglertz, won Manager of the Year, taking every vote except one after breaking Chelsea’s long-standing stranglehold on the competition.
Scottish football honours went to Derek McInnes, who won Manager of the Season by a single vote, despite Hearts missing out on the title to Celtic on the final day. In the English Football League, Frank Lampard and Alex Neil shared the Manager of the Season award, recognising Coventry’s emphatic promotion and Millwall’s near-miss in the play-offs.
Other individual recognitions included Harrison Reed for Premier League Goal of the Season, Granit Xhaka for Signing of the Season following his move to Sunderland, and Michael Skubala as League One Manager of the Season. The awards cover a broad spectrum of the domestic game, with additional winners named in League Two, League One, and the National League.
