Beth Mead wins BBC award.

Arsenal and England forward Beth Mead has been named Woman’s Footballer of the Year by the BBC.

Mead played a starring role for the Lionesses as they won the European Championship for the first time, beating Germany in the final. She was named the Player of the Tournament and also won the Golden Boot.

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She also finished runner-up to Alexia Putellas of Barcelona and Spain for the Ballon d’Or.

All this has represented a major turnaround for a player that had been omitted from the GB squad for the Tokyo Olympics and was also dropped by England by temporary coach Hege Riise.

That was hard on her mind for a while, but when Jonas Eidevall became the manager of her club team, things started to turn around and she was given more freedom on the field.

She scored 11 goals for the Gunners in the Women’s Super League last season, the third highest in the league and she was joint top of the assists list. And she has made a strong start to the current campaign as well, finding the net five times already, including two in the recent thrashing of defending Champions League winners Lyon.

Eidevall, has been quick to praise Mead, saying that her energy, ambition, and motivation are the three best things about her.

Last week, Mead had her say on the Qatar World Cup, speaking out about the decision to award the tournament to the country, and saying that whilst she will be supporting the men’s team, she will not actively promote it.

She is a member of the LGBTQ community herself, is in a relationship with fellow Arsenal player Vivianne Miedema, and has been an advocate for normalising same-sex relations in football.

Another Arsenal player, Lotte Wubben-Moy, has said that she will not be watching the men’s World Cup at all for the very reason that it is being staged in Qatar.

The defender argues that the England women’s team have values that are not reflected at all in the Middle Eastern kingdom.

Mead and Wubben-Moy will both be hoping to be involved next year when the Women’s World Cup is being staged – less controversially – in New Zealand and Australia.

The draw for the group stages was made earlier this month, and England already know they will play Denmark, China, and the winner of a play-off for a place in the knock-out stages.

The confidence is already high, that, under Dutch manager Sarina Wiegman, they can mount a serious challenge for the trophy for the first time.

To do so, at some stage they are probably going to get past the USA, the nation that has dominated women’s football in recent years. But after beating the U.S. in a friendly game at Wembley recently, the gap between the two teams seems to have narrowed a lot.