BBC Goal of the Month

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The Goal of the Month is a monthly segment on BBC's Match of the Day television programme, in honour of the best goal scored each month.^[1] The segment has been featured on the programme since the 1970–71 season.^{[citation needed]} Typically, a selection of eight or ten goals from the month are shown before the Goal of the Month is decided. Until the 2006–07 season, viewers were given the chance to win a prize by selecting the correct winner and the winner would be decided by a vote firstly by post then by text and phone votes. For the majority of the 2007–08 season, the BBC did not allow any competitions due to a money-for-competitions-entry scandal, but towards the end of the season and for the goal of the season competition, normal service was resumed.^[2] When Match of the Day moved to Match of the Day 2 when Colin Murray presented the winner was decided by the subjective opinion of one of the pundits, such as Alan Hansen, Mark Lawrenson or Alan Shearer. From October 2013, BBC Match of the Day 2 viewers have picked the Goal of the Month in a poll conducted by voting on the BBC Sport website or sending the hashtag of the viewers favourite goal via Twitter.

The award of Goal of the Month was usually given as first-, second- and third-best goal of the month on Match of the Day up until the BBC lost the right to show Premier League highlights from 2000 to 2001. When highlights returned to the BBC for 2004–05, the format was reduced to only the best goal of the month being announced. Contending goals used to feature from other competitions which the BBC had the broadcasting rights for, most usually from the FA Cup, this was up to 2007–08 when its rights were transferred to ITV. Once the FA Cup returned to the BBC from 2014 to 2015, Goal of the Month remained exclusively a Premier League affair. The winners usually go forth to contest the Goal of the Season.

From the 2016–17 season, the Premier League has run its own Goal of the Month award, whose winners can conflict with the Match of the Day accolade, as had happened six times in its maiden season.