The Football Daily Christmas Awards 2025 Satirises UK Football Season
The Football Daily Christmas Awards 2025, published on 17 December 2025, marks the fourth edition of the satirical awards feature that lampoons the 2024-25 football season across the UK and beyond.
The awards highlight notable events and personalities with humor and critique. The Battlefield Earth Award for Good Money After Bad calls out Liverpool’s near half‑billion spending spree on new players such as Milos Kerkez, Jeremie Frimpong, Florian Wirtz, Hugo Ekitiké, as well as contracts for Salah and Van Dijk, and the new Arne Slot managerial era.
The Jack Carter Award for Returning Local Hero mocks Jim Ratcliffe’s "Make Manchester United Great Again" campaign, pointing to the club’s rising debt, staff cuts, increasing ticket prices, and ambitious plans for redeveloping Old Trafford.
Scotland’s dramatic and ultimately heartbreaking World Cup campaign earns the Ally MacLeod Award for Most Heartbreaking yet Amusing Scotland World Cup campaign.
Ange Postecoglou’s brief and chaotic tenure at Tottenham Hotspur, ending abruptly with a move to Nottingham Forest before Sean Dyche’s appointment, is the focus of the Liz Truss Award for Crashing and Burning Spectacularly.
The Alan Partridge Award for Worst Waterfront Break targets Russell Martin’s troubled period managing Rangers, which included public criticism and eventual dismissal.
The Dilly-Ding Dilly-Dong Award for Proving People Wrong praises Brentford and Sunderland for defying expectations of relegation through resilience and strategic investments.
In addition to these, the piece offers other satirical takes on football governance and trends, including ideas about overseas matches, the use of AI in management, and career rebounds involving figures like Javier Tebas, Laura Harvey, and Julen Lopetegui.
