[2] The award was formerly known as the Scottish Professional Footballers' Association Players' Player of the Year, but was renamed after the SPFA became affiliated with the (English) Professional Footballers' Association and rebranded PFA Scotland.

Although there is a separate PFA Scotland Young Player of the Year award, young players remain eligible to win the senior award, and in the 2005–06 season Shaun Maloney became the first player to win both awards in the same season, a feat repeated by Aiden McGeady two years later.

[3] The award is regarded by the players themselves as extremely prestigious, with John Hartson commenting in 2005 that "the award means a lot because it's voted by your fellow professionals"[4] and Shaun Maloney stating in 2006 that "there is no better accolade than to be voted for by your peers and it does mean a lot to me".

[9] There have been 45 different winners, with Scott Brown and Henrik Larsson being the only players to have won the award more than once.

The table also indicates where the winning player also won one or more of the other major "player of the year" awards in Scottish football, namely the Scottish Football Writers' Association's Footballer of the Year award (SFWA),[10] and the PFA Scotland Young Player of the Year award (SYPY).