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By Paul Erewuba
Super Eagles forward, Moses Simon was yesterday nominated for CAF’s Player of the Year award, even as Napoli of Italy talisman, Victor Osimhen was shunned by the African football governing body CAF).
The revealed nominees are mainly for the Men’s categories namely Player of the Year, Interclub Player of the Year, Young Player of the Year, National Team of the Year and Club of the Year. The nominees for the Women’s categories will be announced in due course.
A stakeholder panel made up of Technical Experts, CAF Legends and Journalists decided on the list for the various categories taking into the consideration the performance of the nominee from September 2021 till June 2022 at all levels.
Simon, who had a decent African Cup of Nations showing was the only Nigerian nominee in the nominations which looked to have been largely influenced by the African Cup of Nations.
Nigeria got eliminated in the round of 16 of the competition with Simon standing out as one of the best players of the tournament despite the Super Eagles’ early exit.
Nominees for the awards include regular suspects Sadio Mane, Mohammed Salah and Riyad Mahrez.
Surprising nominees are Gambia’s Musa Barrow, Mali’s Hamari Traore and others.
Morocco, Egypt and Senegal have the highest number of nominees with four each for the North African and five for the African champions.
The preliminary nominees are from 13 countries including Nigeria, Senegal, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Mali, Gambia, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and others.
The winners of each category will be decided by a voting panel made up of CAF Technical Committee, media professionals, Head Coaches & Captains of Member Associations and clubs involved at the group stage of the Interclub competitions.
he CAF Awards 2022 will be held ahead of the final of Africa’s flagship women’s competitions, TotalEnergies Women’s Africa Cup of Nations Morocco 2022 scheduled to take place between 02 July – 23 July 2022. The event will also coincide with the house two-year anniversary of the launch of the CAF Women’s Football Strategy.
