African Footballer of the Year winners: Listed from 1970 till date

With the 2023 African Footballer of the Year awarded to Nigeria's Victor Osimhen, let's have a look at the past winners of the prestigious Player of the Year Award in previous years.

The CAF Awards 2023 nominees for the coveted African Footballer of the Year included Achraf Hakimi, Mohamed Salah, and Victor Osimhen. Notably absent from the top three were Sadio Mane and Riyad Mahrez.

Mane claimed the award in 2022 finishing ahead of former Liverpool teammate Salah – a two-time winner.

A brief history of the CAF Awards 

It wasn’t until 1992 that CAF became the body giving the award to the best African footballer each year.

Before then, i.e. between 1970 and 1994, the African Footballer of the Year Golden Ball award was solely awarded by France Football magazine.

The two awards run concurrently for three years, which explains why between 1992 and 1994 my past African footballer of the year list has had more than one winner.

However, after 1994, the French Football Magazine awards was discontinued after the Ballon d'Or (European Footballer of the Year) – also awarded by the same magazine – was opened to players of non-European nationality.

In terms of the records, Samuel Eto’o (from Cameroon) was the first to be crowned on four occasions – just as he remains the all time top goalscorer in the Africa Nations Cup.

He won the CAF Award in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2010 but that record has since been equalled by Ivorian Yaya Toure, who made it four wins consecutively in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014.

In other words, Eto'o and Touré are the players who have won the award the most times.

El Hadji Diouf and Sadio Mane from Senegal, Egypt’s Mohamed Salah and Ivorian icon Didier Drogba have all won the CAF awards twice: 2001 and 2002; 2017 and 2018; 2006 and 2009 respectively, but the first player to have been named CAF African Player of the Year on two occasions was ex-Super Eagles of Nigeria captain, Nwankwo Kanu, in 1996 and 1999.

See all the CAF player of the year multiple winners in a glance:

CAF player of the year multiple winners

In all, 18 players have so far been decorated as CAF African player of the year since 1992.

Full list of African Footballer of the Year award winners

Note: The 2020 and 2021 editions were cancelled due to Covid-19. 

In 1992 Abedi Pele won the vote in both CAF and France Football polls.

And in 1993 Rashidi Yekini and Abedi Pele emerged winners in the CAF and France Football respectively.

In 1994 Emmanuel Amunike and George Weah emerged winners in the CAF and France Football respectively.

The winner of the 2023 CAF Player of the Year award was revealed in a ceremony at Palais des Congrès, Movenpick, Marrakech, Morocco on 11 December 2023.