Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling and Nikita Parris have won the Football Writers’ Association Footballer of the Year awards.
Sterling, 24, took the writers’ men’s award with 62% of the vote after he was named Professional Footballers’ Association Young Player of the Year.
Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk – PFA Player of the Year – was second.
Parris, 25, edged Arsenal’s Vivianne Miedema by 11 to 10 in the second stage of voting for the women’s award.
Netherlands striker Miedema was named PFA Player of the Year alongside Van Dijk on Sunday.
Parris, who has 19 league goals and seven assists this season, has helped City to the Women’s FA Cup final and featured in England’s successful She Believes Cup campaign.
More than 400 FWA members voted for the award, with Sterling finishing more than 100 votes clear of Van Dijk,
Tottenham’s Harry Kane, Chelsea’s Eden Hazard, Arsenal’s Alexandre Lacazette, and Manchester City’s Bernardo Silva and David Silva all earned votes.
Sterling becomes the first City player to win the award since 1969, when Tony Book shared the honour with Derby’s Dave Mackay.
As well as his 29 goals for club and country, the England forward was also praised for his public stance against racism, which has already won him other awards.
“Raheem Sterling is an exemplar of the talent and values our founding fathers sought to reward when they established the FWA in 1947,” said FWA chair Carrie Brown.
“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.
“Raheem didn’t set out to be a leader, but he is setting examples in society and in the game which the world is following with interest.”
