Egyptian Mohamed Salah was crowned the 2017 African Footballer of the Year at the AITEO/CAF Awards ceremony in Accra, Ghana on Thursday night. The Egyptian beat his club mate Sadio Mane and Gabonese Emerick Aubameyang to the award.
When the Confederation of African Football (CAF) released the shortlist of three players last month, Nigerians expressed surprise at the inability of Victor Moses to finish among the final three, at least. However, Moses and his fans will be shocked to learn only three other African nations deemed the Chelsea star fit as the best Player on the continent in 2017.
In results of the polls to determine the 2017 Awards made available to www.aclsports.com by the Confederation of African Football (CAF), only Namibia, South Sudan and Swaziland joined Nigeria’s head coach and captain in voting for Moses as their best player for the year.
While both South Sudanese head coach and captain made Moses their top choice, it was divided among the other two African nations with coaches of both Swaziland and Namibia choosing Moses while their captains made different choices.
Similarly, of the eighteen members in the CAF Technical and Development Committee, only Korici Torfique picked Moses as his choice while Nigeria’s Ahmed Yusuf Fresh was one of just two Committee Members who failed to partake in the voting process.
At the end of the voting process, Moses finished fourth with 215 votes behind third placed Emerick Aubameyang who polled 311 votes with the Liverpool duo Mane and Salah coasting home with 507 and 625 votes respectively.
Salah has now won the CAF African Footballer of the Year and the BBC African Footballer of the year in the same year with Moses finishing out of the top three in both awards.
