The Confederation of African Football (CAF) have released the list of the 10 best African players based outside of Africa ahead of the announcement of African Player of the Year award for 2015, which will see one of the 10 on the list crowned as the continent’s best player.
The 10 nominees will be decided by a voting process that will include the coaches or technical directors of the 54 national associations affiliated to CAF.
Top players among the nominees include the likes of current and four-time African player of the year, Yaya Toure of Cote D’Ivoire, Porto’s Algerian star Yacine Brahimi, Gabonese talent Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang of Borussia Dortmund and Egypt’s Mohamed Salah, who plays in Serie A for Roma.
Of the 10 players on this list, only Manchester City midfielder and Cote D’Ivoire national team captain Toure has been included in a list of nominees for the FIFA Ballon d’Or 2015, which is the award given to the best player in the world during the course of the year.
Toure won the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) title at the beginning of this year as captain of the team, leading them to the final where they defeated Ghana in a tense penalty shootout victory. He is expected to be the favourite for this year’s award once again.
The announcement of the top player in Africa will take place at an awards gala will be held on Thursday, 7 January 2016 in Abuja, Nigeria.
André Ayew (Ghana & Swansea)
Aymen Abdennour (Tunisia & Valencia)
Mudather Eltaib Ibrahim ‘Karika’ (Sudan & El Hilal)
Mohamed Salah (Egypt & Roma)
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Gabon & Borussia Dortmund)
Sadio Mané (Senegal & Southampton)
Serge Aurier (Cote d’Ivoire & Paris Saint Germain)
Sofiane Feghouli (Algeria & Valencia)
Yacine Brahimi ( Algeria & Porto)
Yaya Touré (Cote d’Ivoire & Manchester City)
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