Arabic version: أوليفيا سميث تحتفظ بجائزة أفضل لاعبة شابة من رابطة اللاعبين المحترفين

According to BBC News, Arsenal forward Olivia Smith has won the PFA women’s young player of the year award for a second consecutive season. The 22-year-old is the first non-English recipient of the award in each of the past two years.

Smith joined Arsenal from Liverpool last year in a world-record £1m deal, becoming women’s football’s first £1m player. Liverpool had signed her for a club-record £210,000 one season earlier. She made her Canada debut at 15 and became the first woman to score for Liverpool at Anfield in a Women’s Super League match in October 2025.

Raised in Whitby, Canada, Smith played with boys until she was 12 and trained with them while settling into a girls’ team. Her father, Sean, encouraged her football and recorded her games and goals as she developed. Smith said her Jamaican, Chilean and Peruvian family background exposed her to football culture, including influences from relatives who played the game.

She also took up taekwondo and gymnastics while growing up. Smith said taekwondo helped her discipline and shooting speed, while gymnastics aided her agility, flexibility and mental toughness. She later left home as a teenager to pursue training opportunities, moving to Michigan at 15 without knowing where she would live when she boarded the plane.

Smith is preparing for her second season at Arsenal, the first time in her career she will start a second campaign at the same club. Arsenal open their Women’s Super League season at Brighton on Sunday, 6 September, at 12:00 BST. Smith said she wants to win trophies with Arsenal, as well as fulfil ambitions she wrote down as a child to win the Ballon d’Or and the World Cup.