In a couple hours time, three of Africa’s biggest names in football will line up to battle for the prestigious Glo-CAF – African Footballer of the Year Award at a gala in the International Conference Centre in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.
The award which will be decided by the votes of Coaches or Technical Directors of the National Associations affiliated to CAF, will be contested by three of the best talents in the continent, which includes Manchester City’s Ivorian midfielder Yaya Youre alongside Swansea City’s Andre Dede Ayew – the son of the former Ghanain Catain and former winner, Abedi Pele and Gabon’s Borrusia Dortmund striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
The ceremony is to give honour to distinguished football personalities for their exploits during the year under review – 2015 in this case and it has dominated headlines on both the audio and print mediums throughout the continent as all anticipate seeing who amongst the trio will walk to podium tonight to receive the prestigious accolade.
Toure has won the award in successesion for the past four years and this year’s could be a record 5th triumph, which will cement his place as one of the continent’s ever best players. And Having inspired his Ivory team to finally realise his dream of lifting the Africa Cup of Nations trophy in Equatorial Guinea in 2015 over Ayew’s Ghana team makes him the hot favourite in Nigeria, but he is definitely facing a stiff challenge from Ayew and Aubameyang.
Dede Ayew is a strong contender for the award, following another good year, where he consistently delivered solid performances at both club and international level. After leading Ghana to the 2015 AFCON final, he has emerged as one of the most exciting players in the English Premier League this season following his summer move to Swansea City as a free agent after eight years with French side, Olympique Marseille. He scored on his debut against Chelsea and has gone on to score five more goals taking his tally to 6 after 20 matches.
However Pierre Aubameyang who along with Algeria’s Yacine Brahimi were pipped to the award last year by Toure is the stronger candidate to pip the Ivorian skipper to the coveted award.
He was Dortmund’s top goal scorer last campaign with 16 league goals under his belt, and he enjoyed a blistering start to this season, setting a new Bundesliga record by scoring at least once in each of the opening eight matches and scored an incredible total of 27 goals for his side through all competitions so far this season. Arguably, on current form he is the best African football player at the moment.
The event, touted as the Oscars of Football will be a night to celebrate and to reward sporting excellence and it attract a host high profile individuals with some of the biggest names in world sports, particularly football including the CAF and FIFA’s interim President Alhaji Issa Hayatou, as well as other spheres of life, such as business, politics and entertainment all expected fill the Conference Centre.
And apart from that, it will also showcase a superb and first-class entertainment from outstanding entertainers across different part of Africa.
Since Globacom took over the sponsorship of the Awards in 2005, football has always been married with music to blend the celebration of football excellence amidst high class entertainment.
The top acts expected to entertain guests and VIPs at the event include Salif Keita, an afro-pop singer and songwriter from Mali, who is rated highly because of his reputation as the “Golden Voice of Africa”, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, a South African male choral group that sings in the vocal styles of isicathamiya and mbube, who also rose to worldwide prominence when they sang with Paul Simon on his 1986 album Graceland, and have won multiple awards, including four Grammy Awards, and it will also include Awilo Longomba, a Congolese musician who was a drummer in Viva la Musica, Stukas, Nouvelle Generation. In 1995, he finally quit drumming for singing and released his first album Moto Pamba with help from Shimita and Ballou Canta. Awilo is well known in Africa and revered worldwide by lovers of his genre of music.
Other acts billed to perform at the show include a very impressive line-up, such as Ghanaian reggae-dancehall artiste Shatta Wale, Nigerian Igbo Hip-life star Flavour Nabania, Moroccan singer Ahmed Soultan, King Sunny Ade, Dija, Korede Bello,Omawumi, Bez and Ego.
All the performances will be spiced by LED dancers, water drum dancers, tap-dancers and numerous other classic dancers
The Awar will also include other categories including Women’s National Team of The Year, Women’s Footballer of The Year, Most Promising Talent, Referee of The Year, Legend of The year, Fair Play Award, Platinum Award, which has only one nominee, and Africa Finest XI.
