If the bookies are to be believed, England goalkeeper Mary Earps will be crowned Sports Personality of the Year – and in doing so she will become the second Lioness to win the award in successive years, after Beth Mead in 2022.
Let me make it clear from the start, I have no problem with those winners, or many of the winners in the last six decades.
What I have an issue with is the hype around the award. The way some harp on about it makes out that this is what footballers and other athletes wake up on January 1 hoping to win that year, and if they don’t then they have in some way failed. Which is obviously ridiculous – it couldn’t be further from the truth.
Moving away from football for a second and winding the clock back to the summer of 2013, no sooner had Andy Murray beaten Novak Djokovic in straight sets to win his first Wimbledon title than bookies were sending emails, and talk on social media was that Murray was suddenly favourite to win SPOTY.
But who really cares? Murray trained and trained, and played through the pain barrier time and time again to win Grand Slams, climb the singles rankings and win Olympic gold medals. Yet somehow we are supposed to believe that the ‘real’ mountain top is getting the most votes in a BBC phone-in.
I’m confident if you asked Mead what her highlight of 2022 was, she would say without hesitation that it was helping the Lionesses to win the Euros.
And if Earps does triumph this year, I’m sure she would swap it in a heartbeat to change the result of the World Cup final. If she does happen to be beaten to the award by someone else on the night, it won’t make any difference to the stellar year she has had between the sticks for both England and Manchester United.
Being crowned the Sports Personality of the Year is not the same as winning an Oscar, in fact it’s less relevant than a British Soap Award, yet the hype is up there on the same level.
It’s time to move on from this outdated and irrelevant popularity contest.
