Of course I voted for Raheem Sterling. Come on.
Virgil van Dijk has been magnificent for Liverpool and, in any ordinary season, would have been the catalyst for an historic first Premier League title win for them.
Sterling, though, will go down in history as the footballer who took on institutional racism and won. He will be remembered as the player who gave people a voice. Who challenged the game to admit to and address its unconscious bias against black people.
Sterling is a hero. A leader. An icon. In years to come the game will remember him as it does Jean-Marc Bosman, the man who empowered footballers to take control of their contracts and determine their own futures.
Sterling has empowered current black footballers to speak out about the institutional racism that football’s code of omertà had previously allowed to flourish. To defend themselves in a manner that so many could not over the past five decades for fear of being marginalised or accused of having a bad attitude.
Sterling has emboldened black players to take on the racists on Twitter and Instagram . To speak, as Danny Rose has done, about the futility of pursuing coaching badges when the game has no interest of validating them by making black ex-pros managers.
Raheem Sterling named FWA Footballer of the Year
By capitalizing on his status as a black footballer at the peak of his powers, Sterling continues to shake the previously unsheakable walls of the British media industry.
Sterling has forced it into the longest period of introspection we have ever seen.
How could the papers, radio and TV cast the first stone at football when it does not have it’s own house in order?
How could the media judge him - or any other person of colour when it had no real appreciation of their life experience?
Raheem Sterling wins PFA Young Player of the Year after stunning season
Sterling is the latest footballer - along with Danny Rose - to embarrass the game into accepting it cannot truly understand black players’ frustration at the lack of meaningful action on racism when there are zero decision-makers of colour.
On top of all that, he hasn’t been too shabby on the pitch this season either. Seventeen goals and ten assists for Manchester City in the Premier League. Twenty-nine goals in all competitions for club and country.
Not bad for a player dismissed by England fans as having no end product not so long ago.
Sterling has rewritten his own narrative this season - and his name into history.
