Senegalese Sadio Mané and Egyptian Mohamed Salah, former teammates at Liverpool, are among the ten footballers selected for the title of African Player of the Year 2022, announced the Confederation of African Football (CAF) on Monday July 11. After the 2020 and 2021 editions were canceled due to the Covid pandemic, the name of the 2022 winner will be announced on July 21 during a ceremony in Rabat.
Mohamed Salah has already won the award in 2017 and 2018, while Sadio Mané was honored in 2019. The 30-year-old Senegalese, who left Liverpool last month for Bayern Munich, is the favorite for this 2022 edition. during the African Cup of Nations (CAN), he led Senegal to a first historic success in the final against Salah’s Egypt. Mané also helped qualify his country for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar by again dismissing the Pharaohs.
With the Reds, the Senegalese and the Egyptian won the FA Cup, the League Cup and played in the Champions League final, losing to Real Madrid.
Other contenders for the title of African Player 2022 include Riyad Mahrez, the Algerian captain and winger of Manchester City, already crowned in 2016. The goalkeeper of Senegal and Chelsea, Edouard Mendy, meanwhile, will try to become the first goalkeeper goals to lift the trophy since Moroccan Ezzaki Badou in 1986. The other footballers selected are Cameroonians Karl Toko Ekambi (Lyon) and Vincent Aboubacar (Al Nassr), Ivorian Sébastien Haller (Borussia Dortmund), Guinean Naby Keita ( Liverpool), Moroccan Achraf Hakimi (PSG) and Senegalese Kalidou Koulibaly (Naples).
The African Player of the Year is chosen by the captains and coaches of African national teams, members of the CAF technical committee and certain media.