Eleven players will be vying for the 2019/2020 edition of the Marc-Vivien Foé prize, an annual award which honours the best African footballer in French Ligue 1.
The list, released by organisers Radio RFI and France 24 television, is dominated by Senegal internationals with four candidates – Mbaye Niang and Edouard Mendy (Rennes), Habib Diallo (Metz) and Idrissa Gueye (PSG).
Nigeria boasts of two representatives – Nantes’ player of the season Moses Simon and hot-in-the-market forward Victor Osimhen.
Two Africa Cup of Nations champions with Algeria also made the list – Andy Delort (Montpellier) and Islam Slimani (Monaco).
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The others are Mali’s Hamari Traoré, who plays for Rennes, his club mate Yunis Abdelhamid of Morocco and Gabon midfielder Denis Bouanga of Saint-Etienne.
Ivory Coast international and Arsenal attacker Nicolas Pépé is the prize holder, which he won last year while playing for Lille. His compatriot Gervinho is the only player to have won the accolade twice.
The award was initiated in 2009 in memory of the late Cameroon international, who collapsed while playing for the Indomitable Lions against Colombia in the FIFA Confederations Cup in Lyon, France on June 26, 2003. He was pronounced dead moments later at the hospital.
