Professional Footballers Association

The Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) is the trade union for professional association footballers in England and Wales. The world’s oldest professional sport trade union, it has 4,000 members.

The aims of the PFA are to protect, improve and negotiate the conditions, rights and status of all professional players by collective bargaining agreements.

The PFA is affiliated with the Professional Footballers’ Association Scotland. The Northern Ireland PFA disbanded in 1995.

The PFA has three awards to be given to players – or people who have contributed a lot to the game – every year.

• Players’ Player of the Year award: Given to the player voted the best of the season by his fellow players.
• Young Player of the Year award: Given to the young player voted the best of the season by the PFA.
• Merit Award: Given to the person who has contributed the most to football over the season, as voted for by the PFA.

Team based award:

• Team of the Year award: Given to eleven players in each league (forty-four players in total) who are deemed the best of the season by the PFA.

Fans award:

• Fans’ Player of the Year award: Given to the player voted the best of the season by the fans.

The first female awards:

• PFA Women’s Players’ Player of the Year award:Given to the female player voted the best of the season by her fellow players.
• PFA Young Women’s Player of the Year award:Given to the young female player voted the best of the season by the PFA.

The PFA Player of the Year award was renamed Men’s PFA Player of the Year and the PFA Young Player of the Year was renamed Men’s PFA Young Player of the Year.

In association with other football bodies, the PFA are the managing agents for the “Football Scholarship Programme” and the “Football in the Community Programme”.

It is a member of the Institute of Professional Sport and FIFPro – the confederation of international football players’ unions – as well as the Trades Union Congress. Many of the key personnel within the PFA are also ex-professionals.

The PFA also fund various education programmes for ex and current players. The oldest is a link with the University of Salford which had seen over 70 players complete degrees in Physiotherapy. Additionally players complete Sports Science degrees from Manchester Metropolitan University and Professional Sports Writing and Broadcasting degrees at Staffordshire University, in addition to other programmes including fitness training, training to become driving instructors and various other initiatives.

The PFA worked closely with the Press Association as part of the Football Live project, to manage a team of up to 80 ex-professional footballers to provide statistical information live from all English Football Matches. This agreement switched to OPTA when they successfully took over the supply of data.

The PFA also funds a residential rehabilitation scheme that allows any injured member to attend the Lilleshall Sports Injury Rehabilitation centre for physiotherapy and sports injury treatment free of charge to the player or club. The scheme is designed to complement the medical care available at the players own club. Many club Physios refer their players to Lilleshall with the intention of providing a change of environment. This helps to maintain the motivation and interest of long term injured players. The free sports injury and physiotherapy services are based at the Lilleshall Hall National Sports Centre in Shropshire.