Fourteen winners will emerge in tonight’s CAF Awards ceremony but the most attention will be on the men’s African Player of the Year which has Nigeria and Napoli forward Victor Osimhen, Egypt and Liverpool superstar Mohamed Salah, Morocco and Paris Saint-Germain full-back Achraf Hakimi as the top three finalists.
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— CAF (@CAF_Online) December 10, 2023
Osimhen is believed to be the frontrunner owing to his exploits with Napoli last season. The Lagos-born forward scored an impressive 31 goals across all competitions which were instrumental in landing the Partenopei their first league title in 33 years.
Osimhen built a cult following in the city of Naples with fans adoring him with a god-like status, a treatment only the late legendry Diego Maradona had. For Osimhen to receive such after just three seasons at the club and ahead of other club icons such as Edinson Cavani, Gonzalo Higuain, Marek Hamsik, Dries Martens, Lorenzo Insigne among others, shows he is a class apart.
Osimhen was also the highest-ranked African at the 2023 Ballon D’Or, polling eighth ahead of top names such as Robert Lewandowski, Karim Benzema, Jude Bellingham, Harry Kane, Bukayo Saka among others.
On the African front, Osimhen finished as top scorer during the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers with 10 goals, making it back-to-back campaigns he did that.
Salah and Hakimi, on the other hand, did not have a season that created the kind of buzz Osimhen had.
Salah scored 30 goals competitive goals but fell sort of winning silverware and ultimately finished fifth in the Premier League for a place in the UEFA Europa League, an unfamiliar territory for the Egyptian icon.
Hakimi meanwhile, had a hand in 11 competitive goals for PSG, helping them to a record 11th Ligue 1 title and the French Super Cup. He was also instrumental towards Morocco reaching the 2022 FIFA World Cup semi-finals, the first African country to do so.
After weighing the individual contributions in the year under review, Osimhen appears primed to be the outright winner of tonight’s award which will make him the first Nigerian to win the award since Nwankwo Kanu in 1999 and the fourth Nigerian after Rashidi Yekini (1993) and Emmanuel Amunike (1994).
Osimhen’s path to victory is however not straightforward because he comes up against two names that are immense in the North African region and by extension the Arab region.
Salah’s name hardly needs any introduction in that part of the world as he commands a massive amount of influence that probably no player from any other part of Africa can pull.
Hakimi is arguably the face of Morocco, one of the African powerhouses whose influence is growing tremendously with the hosting of multiple CAF-sanctioned tournaments and will be joint hosts of the 2030 FIFA World Cup along with Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. The CAF awards are also being hosted in Morocco and that might play a significant role.
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— CAF (@CAF_Online) December 7, 2023
Football awards are not necessarily given based on statistics or accolades won but rather a popularity contest that is largely driven by conversations in the media.
Members of the CAF Technical Committee, journalists from CAF member associations as well as coaches and captains of national teams and clubs involved in CAF interclub competitions are the ones vested with the power to vote.
No one knows their mind or what their criteria for voting is. This leaves the floor very open but again, the North African influence can’t be underestimated.
There has been a perceived strong bias of CAF towards North African entities and it will be hard to rule it out. This does not mean Osimhen will not win. Sadio Mane after all beat Salah to the award in the last two years.
There is therefore every indication that Osimhen will be crowned the undisputed king of Africa but that depends on what will be revealed once the carpet rolls at the Palais des Congres by 7PM West African Time (WAT).
