The Club is delighted to announce that Matt Dibley-Dias has been awarded the 2022/23 Johnny Haynes Trophy.
The trophy is awarded to the Fulham Supporters’ Trust Academy Player of the Year and is voted on by Academy staff and players (U16-23s).
Matt is the fifth winner of the annual award with Tyrese Francois, Jay Stansfield, Fabio Carvalho and Sonny Hilton all previous winners.
Our 19-year-old Brazilian midfielder was excellent last season for our Under-21s and his consistent performances saw him catch the attention of Marco Silva, who included him on the First Team bench towards the end of last season.
He went on to feature, and impress, in all three of our PL Summer Series games against Brentford, Aston Villa and Chelsea.
After picking up the prestigious prize, Dibs told fulhamfc.com: "I'm really happy and honoured to pick up this award.
"The names of the players that have won it before me speaks for itself. You've got players like Fabio [Carvalho], Tyrese [Francois] and Jay [Stansfield] who we all look up to so being a part of that list is a great feeling.
"Looking back, it's been a long journey to get to this point with plenty of ups and downs of course, but I'm working hard and I'm currently at the best place I've been at for a long time so hopefully I can keep progressing."
On the previous winners, he added: "Those players have set the blueprint for everyone else to follow so if I can achieve what any of those boys have then great, but the path for each player is very different so we'll wait and see what happens."
Simon Duke of the Fulham Supporters' Trust added: "We are honoured and delighted to be able to support this award on an annual basis and it's a great honour for Matt because it's voted for by the people that work with him.
"The names on the trophy show how prestigious this award is and it will be really interesting to see how Matt develops at the club. Marco has shown a willingness to allow youngsters an opportunity. If they're good enough, they're old enough.
"We certainly saw that on the pre-season tour in America with how some of those players performed and it's further evidence of the excellent work our Academy does in developing young talent from an early age."
"This is a great achievement for Matt, and an acknowledgement of his excellent season last year," said Academy Director Sean Cullen.
"What makes this even more special is the resilience and determination he had to show, through a difficult period with injuries the year before. To then come back and play at the level he did last year, is testament to his character as much as his technical qualities."
