♣ BBC Women's Footballer of the Year

The BBC Women's Footballer of the Year is an annual award given to the best women's footballer of the year. Finalists are shortlisted by an expert panel made up of current and former professional players, coaches, administrators, journalists, and experts. The winner is decided by fan voting from all around the world.

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♣ BBC African Sports Personality of the Year

The BBC African Sports Personality of the Year (previously known as the BBC African Sports Star of the Year and the BBC African Footballer of the Year) was an annual award given to the best African sports personality of the year as voted by the BBC radio listeners. Voting is done via SMS and online.

History

Initially a sports award, the inaugural winner was Ghana's Abedi Pele in 1992. The only non-footballers to win the award was track and field athlete Frankie Fredericks in 1993, and long-distance track and road running athlete Haile Gebrselassie from Ethiopia, in 1998. The Zambia national football team were posthumous winners of the award in 1994, following the plane crash in the Atlantic Ocean a year previous. The award became centred around football from 2001 onwards, Cameroon's Patrick M'Boma was the last person to win it as a sports award.

Nigeria's Nwankwo Kanu and Jay-Jay Okocha, as well as the Ivory Coast's Yaya Touré and Egypt's Mohamed Salah are the only players to win the award more than once, with two wins.

In 2019, the award was changed back to its initial concept and renamed as the BBC African Sports Personality of the Year to reflect the balance between gender, disability and variety of sports on offer. However there were no awards in 2019 and in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, after it was returned back to the sports award, Christine Mboma became the first person to win the award for 2021 season.

♣ BBC Goal of the Season

In English football, the Goal of the Season is an annual competition and award given on BBC's Match of the Day, in honour of the most spectacular goal scored that season. It is typically contested between the winners of the preceding ten Goals of the Month, although the goal can and has come from any game in the regular season, including international qualifiers and friendlies—potentially from the opening league games of the season to the end of the European season UEFA Champions League final. In several instances, the goal has come in the final game of the domestic season, the FA Cup final, the most recent example of which is Steven Gerrard's last-minute goal in 2006. However, in 1980–81, for example, the superb goal scored by Ricky Villa in the FA Cup final replay for Tottenham Hotspur against Manchester City could not be considered as voting had already taken place.

In general, the winning goal has occurred for an English side within the domestic English league or cups, although there are no particular rules; Kenny Dalglish's goal in 1982–83 for Scotland being an exception. The goal usually comes from competitions to which the BBC holds television rights and which are shown under the Match of the Day banner; at present Premier League highlights and FA Cup live matches and highlights, although some have come from the equivalent Sportscene broadcast by BBC Scotland. Due to the lack of BBC European club football coverage, held predominantly by ITV, Sky and BT Sport, no goal of the season has ever been scored in European club competition despite many contenders.

Due to a transfer of broadcast rights, the entries for the 2001–02, 2002–03 and 2003–04 seasons were decided on ITV's The Premiership, which have been subsequently recognised by the BBC. When the BBC previously could not show league footage from 1988–89 to 1991–92, the winning goal in each season was scored in the FA Cup which they held the rights to. League rights holder ITV had its own competition during these seasons for Goal of the Season, broadcast on the Saint and Greavsie show. Previously the channels had shared league and cup rights (showing different matches to each other) and for many years ITV broadcast its own Golden Goals competition as an equivalent of Goal of the Season. From 2013–14 season onwards, the Goal of the Season has been chosen by a Twitter poll and the BBC Sport website.

Jack Wilshere is the first player to win Goal of the Season in consecutive seasons (2013–14 and 2014–15) since the start of the Premier League and is only the second player overall to have achieved this after John Aldridge, who won the award in both 1987–88 and 1988–89 (which pre-dated the Premier League era) seasons. Wayne Rooney is the only player to achieve this accolade for two different competitions (FA Cup and Premier League), as well as the only player to receive the award three times. The 1987–88 competition was unique in that all 10 goals shortlisted were scored by Liverpool players. To date, this is the only occasion where the contenders were made up entirely of goals scored by players for one club.

For several years in the late 2000s, the winner was not subject to public vote due to the 2007 phone-in scandals. The winning goal was instead decided by pundits in the studio.

2014–15 Goal of the Season controversy

award. Users were able to vote via the BBC website or Twitter. The poll was quickly skewed by Arsenal supporters, many from the Far East, resulting in Jack Wilshere winning the award for his final day strike against West Bromwich Albion, despite not being the favourite. Host Gary Lineker expressed surprise as he read out the winner, and pundit Alan Shearer suggested that Charlie Adam should have won the award for his 66-yard effort against Chelsea, while fellow pundit Danny Murphy felt former Fulham teammate Bobby Zamora should have won.

The incident was labelled a "shambles" by Pete Smith of The Stoke Sentinel who also thought Stoke's Adam should have won, and a "concerted campaign by Arsenal fans" by Alan Pattullo of The Scotsman, who also felt the Scottish midfielder was deserving of the award. Mark Brus, of Caught Offside, also criticized the choice arguing that a goal in a meaningless game should not have won Goal of the Season and that Juan Mata's acrobatic effort against Liverpool was worthy of the award.

The following season, before the final episode of that season's Match of the Day, the programme's producers changed the rules to prevent a similar situation. The Goal of the Season award has since been decided by the pundits on the show, who will choose the winner based on the top three goals voted for by the public.

♣ BBC Goal of the Month

The Goal of the Month is a monthly segment on BBC's Match of the Day television programme, in honour of the best goal scored each month. The segment has been featured on the programme since the 1970–71 season. Typically, a selection of eight or ten goals from the month are shown before the Goal of the Month is decided. Until the 2006–07 season, viewers were given the chance to win a prize by selecting the correct winner and the winner would be decided by a vote firstly by post then by text and phone votes. For the majority of the 2007–08 season, the BBC did not allow any competitions due to a money-for-competitions-entry scandal, but towards the end of the season and for the goal of the season competition, normal service was resumed. When Match of the Day moved to Match of the Day 2 when Colin Murray presented the winner was decided by the subjective opinion of one of the pundits, such as Alan Hansen, Mark Lawrenson or Alan Shearer. From October 2013, BBC Match of the Day 2 viewers have picked the Goal of the Month in a poll conducted by voting on the BBC Sport website or sending the hashtag of the viewers favourite goal via Twitter.

The award of Goal of the Month was usually given as first-, second- and third-best goal of the month on Match of the Day up until the BBC lost the right to show Premier League highlights from 2000 to 2001. When highlights returned to the BBC for 2004–05, the format was reduced to only the best goal of the month being announced. Contending goals used to feature from other competitions which the BBC had the broadcasting rights for, most usually from the FA Cup, this was up to 2007–08 when its rights were transferred to ITV. Once the FA Cup returned to the BBC from 2014 to 2015, Goal of the Month remained exclusively a Premier League affair. The winners usually go forth to contest the Goal of the Season.

From the 2016–17 season, the Premier League has run its own Goal of the Month award, whose winners can conflict with the Match of the Day accolade, as had happened six times in its maiden season.

Records

1. During the period in which a top three was announced each month, Dennis Bergkamp was the only player to have achieved the deemed first, second, and third best goals of the month in one calendar month, August 1997. Only two goals came from his hat-trick against Leicester City — not all three as is widely cited. The third was from a previous game against Southampton.
2. The record for the number of players having more than one nomination for GOTS in a season is three. This has happened twice, the first time in 1992–93 when Ryan Giggs (September and May), Dalian Atkinson (October and December) and Dwight Yorke (February and March) each won two Goal of The Month awards. The second was in 1995–96 with Tony Yeboah (August and September); Ian Wright (October and January) and Alan Shearer (December and April) each having two goals in contention.
3. There have been numerous occasions where two players have been nominated twice, but as of 2019–20, no player has yet had three goals selected in a Premier League season.
4. Kevin De Bruyne is the last player to have had two goals selected, in the 2019–20 season.
5. Consecutive GOTM wins has occurred only three times. The players to have achieved this are: Yorke in 1992–93 (February and March); Yeboah in 1995–96 (August and September) and Gareth Bale in 2012–13 (January and February).
6. May 1995 is the only instance, where Goal of the Month was awarded to foreign team's player, namely Nayim of Real Zaragoza for his goal against Arsenal in UEFA Cup Winners' Cup final.
7. Since the advent of the Premier League in 1992–93, Jack Wilshere is the only player to have won GOTS in consecutive seasons (2013–14 and 2014–15), although his latter win was controversial.
8. Wayne Rooney is the player with the most GOTS wins in the Premier League era, having won the award three times: 2004–05, 2006–07 and 2010–11.

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