Mary Earps strong favourite to be named BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year

Mary Earps is the bookmakers’ odds-on favourite to be voted the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year for 2023 on Tuesday night.

Earps was a key part of the England football team which reached the Women’s World Cup final in the summer, having been crowned champions of Europe in 2022.

She has been shortlisted for the prestigious BBC prize alongside former cricketer Stuart Broad, jockey Frankie Dettori, athlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson, tennis player Alfie Hewett and golfer Rory McIlroy.

Earps saved a penalty from Spain’s Jenni Hermoso in the World Cup final, but the Lionesses slipped to a 1-0 defeat in Sydney. The 30-year-old was awarded the FIFA Golden Glove as the tournament’s best goalkeeper.

In September she was also voted England’s women’s player of the year and helped her club Manchester United finish second in the Women’s Super League last season with 14 clean sheets.

Her future at United is uncertain, however, with Earps’ contract with the club due to expire next summer.

Earps also hit the headlines early on at the World Cup when she spoke about the hurt she felt that sportswear manufacturer Nike had not made her England goalkeeper’s replica jersey available to purchase before the tournament.

After mounting pressure, the sports brand released her green long-sleeved Lionesses shirt and it sold out in five minutes. Earps told Sky News at the weekend she thought the company had learned its lesson.

“On this topic, they know that they got this wrong and that’s why they’ve done this correction – a big company like Nike, they wouldn’t do that if they didn’t know it wasn’t right and that there was an injustice there,” Earps said.

“They did the right thing and I can’t thank the public enough for their support and we