Sterling Wins FWA Player Of The Year Award

By Joshua Walters

Manchester City forward, Raheem Sterling has been named Football Writers' Association (FWA) Footballer of the Year for 2019.

The England winger has been in fine form for the Citizens this season, having helped his side mount a strong challenge in the chase for the Premier League title.

Sterling was beaten by Virgil Van Dijk to the Professional Footballers' Association Player of the Year prize on Sunday as he was instead awarded the organisation’s young player award.

Aside being in top form for his club, the former Liverpool lad has also been an influential figure in his country’s Euro 2020 qualifying campaign, as he recently netted a hat-trick in England's 5-0 demolition of the Czech Republic.

According to the FWA, Sterling’s lead in football’s fight against racism and discrimination was a major factor that aided him to garner 62% of member votes cast for the award.

"More than 70 years ago, Charles Buchan, one of the founding fathers of the Footballer Writers’ Association, suggested there be an award presented to the player who by 'precept and example' is considered the footballer of the year,” said Football Writers Association chairman Carrie Brown.

"Raheem Sterling is an exemplar of the talent and values our founding fathers sought to reward when they established the FWA in 1947.

"To have been voted the 2019 Footballer of the Year by our members, and with such an overwhelming majority, clearly acknowledges the contribution from a player over one season but it also recognises the huge impact of Raheem’s courage to challenge preconceptions and fight racism, which will leave a legacy, not just for future generations in football but society as a whole."

Sterling has scored seventeen goals in his thirty-two Premier League games with ten assists, and has also found the back of the net five times in ten Champions League fixtures.