CAF Awards: how the jury vote works

The suspense is almost over. On Monday 16 December, the winner of the 2024 African Player of the Year award will be revealed by the Confederation of African Football at the 2024 CAF Awards. Ademola Lookman of Nigeria and Serhou Guirassy of Guinea are among the most frequently mentioned contenders.

What does the African Player of the Year title reward?

The African Player of the Year title rewards performances over the course of the season. Many people have long confused the African Player of the Year with the African Ballon d'Or. The CAF tried to clear up that confusion at the event billed "Aiteo CAF Awards 2017", held in Accra, Ghana, where Egypt's Mohamed Salah was named winner.

What are the criteria for the African Player of the Year award?

Voters must follow several criteria to draw up their final ranking. The first, naturally, is the players' individual performances. This criterion draws on the player's personal statistics, including goals scored, assists, direct impact on matches and effectiveness on the pitch.

The second criterion concerns collective performance, including the success the player has had with his club and national team, namely titles or cups, and even qualification for international competitions. This criterion also looks at the player's contribution to his team's various victories.

Read also: CAF Awards 2024: all the shortlists revealed!

The third criterion covers the player's impact for his national team. It looks at performances in his country's shirt in international competitions, namely the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) and World Cup qualifiers.

The fourth criterion is based on the player's class and sense of fair play, in other words his leadership on and off the pitch and his ability to inspire team-mates.

The fifth concerns the player's consistency, highlighting the regularity of his performances throughout the season.

Who votes for the African Player of the Year award?

The CAF Awards jury is made up of a panel of journalists, national team coaches and captains in total, with one per country. Using these criteria, each representative of their country draws up a list of five players ranked from 1 to 5. The first-placed player gets 5 points, the second 4 points, the third 3 points, the fourth 2 points and the fifth 1 point. The player with the most points once the votes are counted wins the African Player of the Year award. In the event of a tie, the number of first places awarded decides the winner.

For the 2024 CAF Awards, voting closed on 10 November. That allowed the CAF to publish, as a first step, the five finalists: Simon Adingra (Brighton/Ivory Coast), Serhou Guirassy (Stuttgart/Dortmund/Guinea), Achraf Hakimi (PSG/Morocco), Ademola Lookman (Atalanta/Nigeria) and Ronwen Williams (Mamelodi Sundowns/South Africa), ahead of the final verdict scheduled for 16 December in Marrakech, Morocco.

And what about the African Women's Player of the Year award?

On the women's side, the African Women's Player of the Year award is decided after a vote by female journalists. The rest of the process and the points scale are identical to the men's version of the trophy.