African Footballer: Mikel makes Top-10 shortlist

The Confederation of African Football on Sunday announced the list of the top-ten nominees for the African Player of the Year Award with Nigeria’s Mikel Obi making the list. Nigerian players: Mikel, John Utaka and Victor Moses were listed in the first long list of 34 players released last month by CAF before the cut.

Mikel has continued to run based on the strength of his winning the English FA Cup and the UEFA Champions League with Chelsea last season.

The African body also on Sunday released the names of the five players remaining in the run for Africa-based Player of the Year.

The statement from Cairo explained that the CAF’s Technical, Football and Media Committees decided on the current shortlists which will now be passed on to head coaches of each of the African countries and technical directors from CAF member associations whose votes will decide the eventual winners.

The confederation will announce the top three in the last week of November while the winners will be unveiled at a ceremony to be held December 20 in the Ghanaian capital Accra.

Ivorian Yaya Toure was voted the 2011 African Player of the Year while Tunisian Oussam Darragi was crowned last year’s African Player of the Year-Based in Africa

Mikel who has been on the international limelight for the past one week following the controversial English Premier League between his English club Chelsea and Manchester United becomes the first Nigerian to get that far in many years. The last time a Nigerian won the prestigious African award was in 1999 when Kanu Nwankwo of Arsenal swept aside other contestants. In 2003 Austin Okocha finished third behind Didier Drogba and Samuel Eto’o. The following year he rose to the second position behind Eto’o and then after that Nigerian players took the slide down the pole with Nigerian football generally.

Mikel is competing against his former teammate and one of the favourites Didier Drogba who also won the same trophies with Mikel. Drogba’s goals were very crucial in their European cup success last season. The other key contender is current champion Yaya Toure who won the English league title with Manchester City. There is also Christopher Katongo who led an unheralded Zambian side to the African title in February.

Top Ten Players List
Alexander Song
Andre Ayew
Christopher Katongo
Demba Ba
Didier Drogba
Gervais Lombe Yao Kouassi
John Obi Mikel
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
Yaya Toure
Younes Belhanda

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