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On this page Who are the 2026 nominees?
GAA Footballer of the Year 2026: the numbers
David Clifford, Ryan O'Donoghue and Jack Carney are the three nominees for the 2026 PwC GAA/GPA Footballer of the Year, and the players vote. On the scoresheet Clifford had the biggest championship: 7-50 in eight games. History points the other way, because 24 of the 31 winners since 1995 came from the All-Ireland champions, and that is Mayo.
Data checked on against the GAA.ie match reports of all 15 championship games the three nominees played.
Who are the 2026 nominees?
The shortlist is Clifford of Fossa and Kerry, O'Donoghue of Belmullet and Mayo, and Carney of Kilmeena and Mayo. PwC announced it alongside 45 All-Star nominations from 12 counties, chosen by a group of Gaelic games correspondents and led by Mayo with 11 and Kerry with seven (PwC, 22 September 2026).
The correspondents do not choose the winner. The overall awards are voted on by the players themselves, and the result is announced at the All-Stars night in Dublin's RDS on Friday 30 October.
Mayo won the All-Ireland on 26 July, beating Kerry 1-20 to 1-17 for their first Sam Maguire since 1951. Two of the nominees played for that team. The third, Clifford, was Kerry's top scorer that day. We went through every championship game the three played this year and counted where each score came from.
The three seasons side by side
All three played eight championship games, from the provincial series to the final on 26 July. So the totals compare game for game.
| Clifford (Kerry) | O'Donoghue (Mayo) | Carney (Mayo) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Games | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| Total | 7-50 (71) | 2-56 (62) | 0-18 (18) |
| Per game | 8.9 | 7.8 | 2.3 |
| From play | 59 | 32 | 18 |
| From frees, 45s and marks | 12 | 30 | 0 |
| Two-pointers from play | 6 | 4 | 8 |
| Two-point frees | 4 | 6 | 0 |
| Share of his team's total | 35% | 31% | 9% |
| Quarter-final, semi-final and final | 3-19 (28) | 1-24 (27) | 0-6 (6) |
| The final | 1-6, lost | 0-5, won | 0-4, won |
Our count from the GAA.ie reports of all 15 games. Per-game figures are rounded to one decimal place.
Two numbers stand out. Clifford took 59 of his 71 from play, and O'Donoghue took almost half of his 62 from placed balls. And the midfielder of the three kicked more two-pointers from play than either forward.
David Clifford: 7-50 on the losing side
Clifford scored a goal in seven of his eight games. Only Donegal, who beat Kerry in Killarney in round one, kept him to points: 0-4. His best day was 1-10 against Armagh in round three, with two two-pointers from play and a two-point free.
| Date | Game | Result | Clifford |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25 April | Munster semi-final v Clare | W 2-19 to 1-14 | 1-7 |
| 10 May | Munster final v Cork | W 1-23 to 1-15 | 1-6 |
| 23 May | Round 1 v Donegal | L 0-16 to 2-20 | 0-4 |
| 13 June | Round 2B v Kildare | W 3-22 to 0-17 | 1-4 |
| 20 June | Round 3 v Armagh | W 4-18 to 0-17 | 1-10 |
| 27 June | Quarter-final v Tyrone | W 2-25 to 0-27 | 1-8 |
| 12 July | Semi-final v Dublin | W 2-18 to 0-20 | 1-5 |
| 26 July | Final v Mayo | L 1-17 to 1-20 | 1-6 |
Scorer lines from the GAA.ie report of each game.
Kerry scored 203 across those games and Clifford got 35% of it, the same share as in 2025 (his two seasons in numbers). In the last three, when the opposition was at its strongest, he still averaged more than nine a game. Even the final, a day Kerry lost, gave him 1-6 and the only goal Kerry scored.
Against himWhat he does not have is the medal. Kerry lost the final, and since 1995 only six winners have come from the beaten side. If he wins, his fourth award would put him two clear of anyone else on the list.
Ryan O'Donoghue: the free-taker who won it
O'Donoghue's season reads like a free-taker's season because that is part of his job: 17 one-point frees, six two-point frees and a mark make up 30 of his 62. A team gives the frees to the man it trusts in a tight game, and five of Mayo's eight games were decided by five points or fewer.
| Date | Game | Result | O'Donoghue | Carney |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 April | Connacht quarter-final v London | W 0-31 to 1-15 | 0-11 | 0-3 |
| 26 April | Connacht semi-final v Roscommon | L 1-18 to 2-25 | 1-4 | 0-1 |
| 31 May | Round 1 v Monaghan | W 1-24 to 2-20 | 0-8 | 0-4 |
| 14 June | Round 2A v Tyrone | L 1-18 to 0-22 | 0-5 | 0-2 |
| 20 June | Round 3 v Meath | W 0-22 to 2-13 | 0-4 | 0-2 |
| 27 June | Quarter-final v Cork | W 0-23 to 0-18 | 0-8 | 0-2 |
| 11 July | Semi-final v Louth | W 3-23 to 0-15 | 1-11 | none |
| 26 July | Final v Kerry | W 1-20 to 1-17 | 0-5 | 0-4 |
Scorer lines from the GAA.ie report of each game. Carney did not score against Louth.
Mayo lost twice on the way, to Roscommon in Connacht and to Tyrone in Omagh, and still won the All-Ireland. O'Donoghue's 1-11 against Louth was the biggest single tally by any of the three nominees this championship. In the final he kicked two two-pointers from play.
His caseHe scored 31% of everything Mayo scored in the year they ended 75 years of waiting, and his best game came in an All-Ireland semi-final.
Jack Carney: what the scoresheet misses
Carney started at midfield in the final, the semi-final and the quarter-final, and a midfielder's season is mostly invisible in scores. Kick-outs won, breaks gathered, tackles: none of it reaches a match report. The GAA's Games Intelligence Unit tracks kick-outs and turnovers, but its 2026 season summary on GAA.ie breaks the figures down by competition, not by player.
What his scoring line does show is unusual for a midfielder. All 18 of his points came from play. He scored in seven of eight games, and his eight two-pointers from play are more than Clifford's six and O'Donoghue's four. Two of them came in the final, when Mayo's four two-pointers were split evenly between him and O'Donoghue.
Why he is on the listA place on a shortlist of three with 0-18 says the people who drew it up saw something the numbers here cannot count.
Does the winner come from the champions?
Usually, yes. We checked the award's roll of winners on Wikipedia against the All-Ireland final results for every year from 1995 to 2025: 24 of the 31 winners played for that year's champions.
Seven did not, and six of those seven came from the beaten finalists. Clifford is one of them: he won in 2023, the year Kerry lost the final to Dublin. Mayo's only two winners, Lee Keegan in 2016 and Andy Moran in 2017, also won in years Mayo lost the final.
Clifford already has three, from 2022, 2023 and 2025 (PwC, 2025), and nobody else has more than two.
Scoring power against an All-Ireland medal
On scoring alone, Clifford's 2026 is the strongest of the three. He leads on total, on scores from play and on the quarter-final, semi-final and final, by a margin that is not close from play: 59 against 32.
The players who vote know what a free-taker under pressure is worth and what a midfielder covers, and they usually reward a champion. Two of the three this year are champions.
After 30 OctoberWe will add the winner here, next to the figures above.
How we counted
Every figure comes from the scorer lines in GAA.ie's reports of all 15 games, the final included (GAA.ie, 26 July 2026). Points totals include two-pointers at two each, and "from play" means everything except frees, 45s and marks, so a two-point free counts as placed. Where a scorer line gives no breakdown, the report's text fills it in; where the two disagree, the line wins.
For the season as a whole, the GAA's own analysts reviewed 200 inter-county games on 8 October and report more goals, more two-point attempts and a higher shot efficiency (GAA.ie).
Frequently asked questions
Who votes for Footballer of the Year?
The players. The PwC All-Star nominations are chosen by a group of Gaelic games correspondents, but the overall awards are voted on by the players themselves.
When is Footballer of the Year 2026 announced?
At the PwC All-Stars, a black-tie night in the RDS in Dublin, on Friday 30 October 2026.
Who has won the most Footballer of the Year awards?
David Clifford, with three: 2022, 2023 and 2025. No other footballer has won it more than twice in the list of winners from 1995.
Can a player from a beaten team win Footballer of the Year?
Yes. Seven of the 31 winners from 1995 to 2025 did not play for the champions, and six of them lost the final that year, Clifford in 2023 among them.