Professional Footballers' Association

The Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) is a trade union for professional association footballers. It's the world's oldest professional sport trade union, founded in 1907. The aims of the PFA are to protect, improve and negotiate the working rights to all professional footballers in England and Wales.

Criteria
Since 1974 the association has awarded a "Player of the Year" award, voted on by the 4,000 members of the organization. Each player gets two votes in the spring, with a shortlist published and the winner announced sometime in April.

In game, the winner is announced in the post-season and the criteria is never explained. However it is believed the award is given for the player with the best average rating that season.