Son Heung-min snubbed on PFA Player of the Year short list

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Son Heung-min snubbed on PFA Player of the Year short list

Son Heung-min [REUTERS/YONHAP]

Son Heung-min [REUTERS/YONHAP]

 
Tottenham Hotspur's Son Heung-min was not included on the short list for the Professional Footballers’ Association's Player of the Year award on Wednesday despite winning the Premier League Golden Boot with 23 goals throughout the 2021-22 campaign.
 
Liverpool's Mohamed Salah, who split the Golden Boot with Son, was included on the list, as were Liverpool's Sadio Mané and Virgil van Dijk, Tottenham's Harry Kane, Manchester City’s Kevin De Bruyne and Manchester United's Cristiano Ronaldo.
 
The exclusion of Son, one of the two top scorers for the season, comes as a surprise, especially as Salah was included on the list. That Kane, who underperformed compared to previous years after attempting to leave Tottenham in August last year, made the list over Son makes the snub even stranger.
 
The PFA Player of the Year is chosen by members of the PFA, the professional football players' union. As a result, it is the only footballing award that recognizes a player's achievement based purely on the opinion of their peers, and as such is often seen as more prestigious by the players themselves.
 
Son's unexpected snub is more likely an unfortunate side effect of the logistic issues of collecting votes from so many people than an indication that his colleagues don't think he is worth consideration. 
 
Due to the large amount of administrative work required, votes for the award are gathered throughout the spring, not when the season is actually in its last few days. As Son went on a scoring spree in the last few weeks of the season, knocking in six goals in May alone, it's possible that his peers had already voted before it became clear just how dominant he was going to be.
 
The same was also true for the Football Writers' Association Player of the Year award, where Son was also overlooked as the vote took place far earlier in the spring.
 
The other issue may well be profile. In 2021 The Athletic talked to a number of players about how they choose who to vote for in these player ballots and the replies suggested that most players are too focused on their own careers to really pay much attention to anybody else. 
 
In that case, it's just the players that receive the most media attention — Ronaldo being the most obvious example — who are guaranteed votes because everybody is at least peripherally aware of what they're up to. 

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]
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