YET again, the winner of the 2016 GLO-CAF African Footballer of the Year award will not be a Nigerian following the pruning of the initial list of 30 players.
The Confederation of African Football (CAF) on Tuesday released the list of five players from the original 30 and none of the three Nigerians in the 30-player list – Kelechi Iheanacho, Ahmed Musa and John Obi Mikel made the cut, deflating the hope of a Nigerian being crowned the best footballer on the continent in the outgoing year.
Former Super Eagles captain, Nwankwo Kanu, is the last Nigerian player to win the diadem. Kanu’s emergence in 1999 was his second after he was named the winner in 1996, on the back of his sterling contributions to Nigeria’s gold medal effort at that year’s Olympics football event in Atlanta, USA.
Left to contest for the 2016 title are Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who is the current holder of the title. The Gabonese plays club football for Borussia Dortmund in the German Bundesliga; Senegal and Liverpool player, Sadio Mane and Egyptian Mohamed Salah, who currently features for AS Roma of Italy. The two others, incidentally from Algeria are Riyad Mahrez and Islam Slimani both of whom play for Leicester City in the English Premiership.
Nigeria have also lost out in the race for the award for the African Footballer of the Year (Based in Africa) with the exclusion of Mfon Udoh and Chisom Chikatara from the five-player shortlist also released on Tuesday.
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