With CAF set to crown the new African Player of the Year on Monday night, we thought we would take a look at the five previous players who held the illustrious award aloft.
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Tonight, Africa will have a new football king as either Victor Osimhen, Achraf Hakimi or Mohamed Salah will win the latest edition of the Men's Player of the Year (POTY) prize. If either the Nigerian or the Moroccan win it, it will be their first time claiming it, but Salah is a multiple winner and will be looking to take it home for a third time.
He first won it in 2017 after sterling performances for club and country, when he managed to lead the Egyptian national team to the Africa Cup of Nations final that year, and was also in prime form first for AS Roma, then Liverpool. He would finish his final season in the Eternal City with 15 goals and 13 assists, before making his way to Anfield where he would have a record-breaking campaign by the end of 2017/18.
He also won it the following year as he beat out his then-teammate Sadio Mane and Gabonese legend Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang after he broke the single-season record for goals in a 38-game Premier League campaign with his 32 strikes.
Click through the gallery below to see the past five recipients of the CAF Men's Player of the Award!
Mane and Aubameyang have also won the award, though. The Senegalese, however, is the same as Salah in that he is also a two-time winner. The Bambaly native was first given the prize for being the best on the continent in 2019 after he led Senegal to that year's AFCON final. Prior to that competition in Egypt, the winger helped the Reds win their sixth UEFA Champions League, causing many to insist he was Jurgen Klopp's most important player.
In 2022, he eclipsed those accomplishments as he helped the Merseyside outfit to the cusp of a historic quadruple. Having won the League Cup and FA Cup, Liverpool missed out on grabbing the league title by one point and lost the Champions League final to Real Madrid 1-0. Regardless, Mane had a memorable year as he spearheaded the Senegal attack that captured the nation's maiden AFCON title, consequently winning his second CAF POTY award. He almost won the Ballon d'Or, too, finishing second behind only Karim Benzema that year.
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Aubameyang won it before any of the aforementioned wide players, however. He claimed it in 2015 while he was playing for Borussia Dortmund as he finally got the better of Yaya Toure after his four-year winning streak. The Black Panthers captain scored in the AFCON that year and was prolific for BVB as he became the first and only player from Gabon to ever win the award.
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