On Monday, May 11, at the Palais Brongniart in Paris, the trophées UNFP honored Ousmane Dembélé, Pierre Sage and Melchie Dumornay. The official winners list published by the UNFP, however, is worth more than just a roster of victors. It condenses, in one evening, the assessment of the 2025–2026 football season, but also several deeper trends: the economic weight of PSG, the progress of RC Lens, the UNFP’s union role in representing players, and the still-unfinished transformations of women’s football.
Dembélé’s Double Confirms PSG’s Sporting And Financial Power
According to the UNFP’s official list, Ousmane Dembélé retained his Ligue 1 player of the year trophy and also won the Just Fontaine award for the best goal, the only award of the evening subject to a public vote. For the rest, the UNFP specifies that players, coaches, female players and referees each vote within their category, in a process described as “strict, supervised and confidential,” with 96% participation last year and 95% of votes cast in person in the locker rooms.
This mechanism matters, because it gives Dembélé’s award a professional weight beyond mere image success. It reflects his peers’ view of a season dominated by PSG in the most visible categories. Désiré Doué, also a Parisian, was elected Ligue 1 best young player, which further reinforces PSG’s overwhelming weight in this Ligue 1 season.
The economic context accentuates this dominance. In the most recent financial reports published by the LFP and the DNCG, resource concentration remains strong: for the 2022–2023 season, the top three clubs represented 43.9% of Ligue 1’s broadcast rights. In the individual accounts published by the LFP, PSG already appeared, on a consolidated basis, as an exceptional club with €569.7 million in non-transfer revenues and €503.2 million in personnel costs for the 2020–2021 fiscal year. Even allowing for seasonal accounting variations, the order of magnitude shows why Parisian individual awards do not depend solely on talent. Indeed, they also result from a structural capacity to concentrate players, exposure and performance.
Lens Represents A Different Model, Tighter Financially And Clearer Sportingly
Against that power, RC Lens appears as a credible counter-model. Pierre Sage received the Ligue 1 coach of the year trophy, awarded by other coaches. Robin Risser was elected best goalkeeper. Two distinctions that reward less a brand effect than collective coherence.
Figures available in the 2024–2025 individual accounts published by the LFP clarify this difference in scale. Lens reports €68.8 million in non-transfer revenues, €59.8 million in personnel costs and a net loss of €9.7 million. This is far from Parisian financial masses. The message of the winners list becomes more interesting: the UNFP here singles out a club capable of producing performance, professional recognition and sporting value without the same economic leverage as PSG.
This gives Sage’s trophy institutional as well as tactical meaning. In a French football landscape weakened by audiovisual uncertainty, the LFP already stressed particular vigilance in summer 2024. clubs’ economic situations required attention to cash flow. The minutes of the board meeting of August 2, 2024 mention a distribution of €490.9 million to clubs for 2024–2025. This occurs in a general context of resource tension and reflection on savings to be made. Lens appears in this landscape as an example of a club that progresses through organization and bench work. Indeed, it bets on sporting valorization rather than on salary inflation alone.
The UNFP Awards Also Say Who Speaks For The Players
The ceremony is not institutionally neutral. The UNFP is not a mere event organizer. On its site, the union recalls that it “defends the rights and interests of all players who play in France.” The 2024–2025 Professional Football Charter moreover lists it among the signatories of the collective agreement for football professions, alongside Foot Unis and UNECATEF, to set employment, training, work conditions and social guarantees for sector employees.
In other words, the UNFP awards are not just an end-of-season list: they are also a representation device. The fact that players vote for players and that coaches choose the coach of the year gives the awards a discreet political value. Moreover, the union that runs the ceremony reinforces this dimension. Indeed, these prizes stage the idea that professional football should not be told only by broadcasters. It should not be narrated solely by owners or league headquarters either. But it must also be told by its employees.
This point resonates all the more because the UNFP has multiplied, in recent months, public positions on workload, social protection and players’ role in football governance. Even without becoming a platform, the ceremony shows that in France professional recognition is obtained through a union framework. Moreover, that distinguishes it from a mere marketing exercise.
Women’s Football Goes Beyond Dumornay’s Sole Crown
Among women, Melchie Dumornay was elected the best player in Arkema Première Ligue. The award confirms OL Lyonnes’ central role, but it is not enough to describe the sector’s state. Official FFF data first show a growing base: 251,369 female licenses were registered as of June 30, 2024, or 10.5% of total federation licenses. The Federation emphasizes that female participation has been growing 10% per year for ten years. In addition, 4,000 amateur clubs have at least one women’s team. Furthermore, 8,000 clubs have at least one registered female player.
This growth does not mean economic balance has been reached. It explains that a professionalization movement is underway, supported by the federation’s engagement plan and the FFF’s gender-mix plan. However, resource gaps between sections remain significant. The official Arkema Première Ligue standings for 2024–2025 show Lyon’s dominance and a widening top end. Thus, OL finished first with 62 points, ahead of PSG on 52 and Paris FC on 45.
In that context, Dumornay’s crown matters because it confirms a benchmark. But the awards for Mylène Chavas, at Paris FC, as best goalkeeper, and Justine Rouquet, at Montpellier, as best young player, tell another story: an increase in the league’s density, where several clubs now contribute to talent and performance production.
A Winners List That Summarizes A Season, But Also A Balance Of Power
The rest of the evening completes this picture: Zuriko Davitashvili was elected best Ligue 2 player, Michael Olise best French player abroad, and Didier Drogba received the UNFP-Fondaction award for the citizen player. Again, the winners list goes beyond mere distribution of awards. It seeks to embrace the entire professional field.
That is what makes this 2026 edition interesting. Dembélé embodies the showcase of an ever more central PSG. Sage and Risser show that a club like Lens can still impose another logic of performance. Dumornay reminds that OL Lyonnes remains the beacon of women’s football, even as competition thickens. And the UNFP, in the background, reminds that French football is also a world of work, with its votes, representatives, collective agreements and governance battles. The true meaning of the UNFP awards is probably there: to tell the season, yes, but also to tell who holds the power to define it.