Osimhen Beats Hakimi, Salah To Emerge 2024 African Player Of the Year; Oshoala, Nnadozie Win

Super Eagles and Napoli striker, Victor Osimhen, thie evening beat Mohamed Salah of Egypt and Morocco’s Achraf Hakimi to win the 2024 CAF Men’s Player of the Year award.

Osimhen thus becomes the first Nigerian since Nwankwo Kanu in 1999 to win the award.

Other Super Eagles players, Rashidi Yekini, Emmanuel Amuneke and Victor Ikpeba are the only other Nigerians who had won the prestigious award.

But Nwankwo is the most successful of them all as he remains the only Nigerian to have won the award twice in 1996 and 1999.

Only recently in Milan, the 24-year-old Osimhen was named the Italian Footballers’ Association (AIC) Player of the Year for the 2022/23 Serie A season.

He won the Golden Boot award at the 2015 FIFA U-17 World Cup, which Nigeria won. He made his senior international debut in June 2017 and played at the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations. He is currently the fourth all-time highest goal scorer of the Nigeria national team.

He was ranked number eighth in the 2023 Ballon d’Or award which was held in Paris, France and became the first Nigerian to make the top ten of the Ballon d’Or.