PFA Players' Player of the Year Winners

Mohamed Salah is the most successful player in the history of the PFA Players’ Player of the Year, and the only three-time winner, taking the award in 2017-18, 2021-22 and 2024-25. No one else has won it more than twice.

The PFA award carries a specific kind of weight: it is decided by a vote of the players themselves, not by the media. That is the line that separates it from the Football Writers’ Association’s Footballer of the Year, and it is why professionals talk about it as the judgment of their peers. Below is the recent roll of winners, the full list of multiple winners, and the distinction between the two big English player-of-the-year prizes. Figures are current through the 2024-25 season.

Recent PFA Players’ Player of the Year winners

The award is presented at the end of each season, so the 2024-25 winner was announced in 2025. This table lists the last ten winners.

Season	Winner	Club
2024-25	Mohamed Salah	Liverpool
2023-24	Phil Foden	Manchester City
2022-23	Erling Haaland	Manchester City
2021-22	Mohamed Salah	Liverpool
2020-21	Kevin De Bruyne	Manchester City
2019-20	Kevin De Bruyne	Manchester City
2018-19	Virgil van Dijk	Liverpool
2017-18	Mohamed Salah	Liverpool
2016-17	N’Golo Kanté	Chelsea
2015-16	Riyad Mahrez	Leicester City

Manchester City and Liverpool players have taken eight of the last ten, a clean reflection of which two clubs have set the pace in the Premier League over that stretch.

Salah’s record and the two-time winners

Salah’s 2024-25 award pushed him clear of a field that had been stuck on two for decades. His three wins are spaced across seven seasons, which is unusual: most players who win it do so in a tight peak window rather than returning to the top of the vote years later.

Six players have won the award exactly twice. The list spans four decades of English football:

Player	Wins	Seasons
Mohamed Salah	3	2017-18, 2021-22, 2024-25
Mark Hughes	2	1988-89, 1990-91
Alan Shearer	2	1994-95, 1996-97
Thierry Henry	2	2002-03, 2003-04
Cristiano Ronaldo	2	2006-07, 2007-08
Gareth Bale	2	2010-11, 2012-13
Kevin De Bruyne	2	2019-20, 2020-21

De Bruyne is the only back-to-back winner among the recent names, taking it in consecutive seasons for Manchester City. Ronaldo did the same in the late 2000s before leaving for Real Madrid.

How the PFA award differs from the FWA Footballer of the Year

The two awards look similar and are often lumped together, but the electorate is the whole point. The PFA Players’ Player of the Year is chosen by the members of the players’ union, so it is a vote of professionals on their own. The FWA Footballer of the Year is chosen by the Football Writers’ Association, meaning journalists who cover the game.

Most seasons the two awards land on the same player, because a standout campaign is obvious to players and press alike. But they diverge often enough to matter: the players and the writers weigh things differently, and a player admired inside the dressing room can edge the PFA vote even when the media narrative points elsewhere.

Why the players’ vote is prized

Ask professionals which individual honour means the most in English football, and the PFA award comes up first, precisely because opponents cast the votes. A striker who terrorises defenders all season knows those same defenders are marking their ballot. That peer element is the award’s identity, and it is why a three-time win is treated as a genuine standard rather than a media popularity contest.

For the players chasing continental honours rather than domestic ones, see our list of the most Champions League titles by a player, and for the season-long goal chase that often decides these votes, the World Cup Golden Boot winners track scoring at the international level. If you would rather test your own football knowledge, our daily Sports Connections puzzle groups players, clubs and trophies into hidden categories. Salah’s three awards are the record to beat, and no one else has reached even a third win.