African Player of the Year Top 10 Past Winners

Top 10 players with the Most African Footballer of the Year, African Player of the Year Top 10 Past Winners, African Footballer of The Year winners list

African Footballer of the Year award/African Player of the Year Top 10 Past Winners, presented to the best African footballer each year, has been conferred by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) since 1992. An earlier African Footballer of the Year Golden Ball award was given out between 1970 and 1994 by France Football magazine.

Due to the modifications, Abedi Pele and George Weah received parallel Golden Ball honors from the magazine in 1993 and 1994, even though Rashidi Yekini and Emmanuel Amuneke won the CAF-sponsored awards for those years, respectively, while Abedi Pele received two trophies in 1992.

After the European Ballon d’Or, which was also given out by the magazine, was opened up to all players in the European leagues, France Football stopped holding the election in 1995 African Player of the Year Top 10 Past Winners.

African Player of the Year Top 10 Past Winners

Samuel Eto’o and Yaya Touré have each won the prize four times, while Didier Drogba, a two-time winner, is the athlete with the most runners-up finishes (4), third-place finishes (3), and top-three finishes (eight) (9). The only players from Europe to get the award are Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Riyad Mahrez, and Frédéric Kanouté, who were all born in France. Kanouté and Aubameyang both played for France’s U21 team before moving on to represent Mali and Gabon, respectively.

PlayerWinnerRunner-upThird place
Samuel Eto’o422
Yaya Touré410
George Weah340
Abedi Pele300
Didier Drogba243
Roger Milla221
Sadio Mané221
Mohamed Salah220
Nwankwo Kanu200
El Hadji Diouf200

Samuel Eto’o

Eto’o being at the top of this list is hardly surprising. The two-time Afcon champion, who has also won league championships in Italy and La Liga, is without a doubt Africa’s most decorated player in Europe. He has also won the Champions League three times.

In the 2005–06 and 2008–09 seasons, he was a key component of Barcelona’s success in Europe, and he became just the second player to score in two Champions League finals.

After assisting Inter Milan in winning the championship in the 2009–10 season, the Cameroonian also became the fourth player to do so. The first athlete to receive four African Footballer of the Year honors, he did so in African Player of the Year Top 10 Past Winners.

Didier Drogba

The years when Drogba helped Chelsea become a European force saw him win the individual awards twice as the African Footballer of the Year.

He was crucial to the Blues’ success at home, contributing to their four Premier League championships, four FA Cup victories, and three League Cup victories.

African Player of the Year Top 10 Past Winners
African Player of the Year Top 10 Past Winners

The attacker also had a significant impact in the 2012 Champions League final as Chelsea defeated Bayern Munich to earn their first European title by scoring a late equalizer and the winning penalty.

Yaya Toure

Toure is one of the greatest African players in the annals of the game and the only player to have won the African Footballer of the Year award four times in a row.

He was crucial to Barcelona’s Champions League victory in 2009, the Ivory Coast’s victory in the Nations Cup in 2015, and Manchester City’s development into a true European super team in the years between.

African Player of the Year Top 10 Past Winners
African Player of the Year Top 10 Past Winners

George Weah

Weah, the only African player to win the Ballon d’Or, has added three African Footballer of the Year titles to his resume. He had to wait to receive a second award after winning his first one in 1989, but he promptly won back-to-back victories in 1994 and 1995.

Weah is most remembered for his time with AC Milan, when he won two Serie A championships. Weah also won trophies with Chelsea, AS Monaco, and Paris Saint-Germain.

African Player of the Year Top 10 Past Winners
African Player of the Year Top 10 Past Winners

Mohamed Salah

Salah African Player of the Year Top 10 Past Winners, who is now ranked slightly ahead of Mane, was a member of the Liverpool team that won the UCL in 2019 and the Premier League a year later.

Only Kevin De Bruyne in the Premier League had a more impressive season than he did, and he is a strong contender to earn Player of the Year this year.

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