African Player of the Year Awards
CAF Awards 2017: Mo Salah wins African Player of the Year
Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mané and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang were all nominated but the Egyptian scooped the top prize for best African Player of the Year.
Liverpool star Mohamed Salah won the African Player of the Year award Thursday, the first Egyptian to achieve the feat since 1983. Fellow Liverpool attacker Sadio Mane of Senegal was runner-up and 2015 winner Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang of Borussia Dortmund and Gabon third.
Liverpool will be well-represented on Thursday as the successor to 2016 winner Riyad Mahrez is announced in Accra. Both Mo Salah and Sadio Mané of the Anfield side are on the three-player shortlist for the men’s award along with Borussia Dortmund striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
Salah, who has carried his exceptional Roma for over into his second debt season in the Premier League, is the overwhelming favourite to lift the award after scooping both the BBC Player of the Year and Arab Player of the Year prizes after also helping Egypt to the World Cup finals for the first time in 28 years with five goals in qualifying. Mané was also in fine form for Liverpool in the second half of last season until he was sidelined by a serious injury and has found himself somewhat overshadowed by his new teammate in 2017-18 while Aubameyang, the 2015 African Player of the Year, has struggled for form in a stuttering Dortmund side and elected not to play for Gabon in several of their World Cup qualifiers.