CAF Awards: Asamoah Gyan is 8th Best Player in Africa

• Posted on January 10, 2014January 10, 2014
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Ghana striker Asamoah Gyan emerged the 8^th Best Player in Africa following the publication of the overall polls for the Player of the Year award by CAF.

The Black Stars captain polled a total of 187 votes from the total votes cast by the coaches of the 53 football associations affiliated to CAF including Ghana coach Akwasi Appiah.

The coaches are allowed to award a maximum of ten marks to the player they believe is the best on the continent amongst the top 10 nominees.

This maximum figure declines by one with respect to their preferred rating of the nominee.

So for instance, in the case of Akwasi Appiah, his highest mark of 10 went to Asamoah Gyan with Yaya Toure, Jonathan Pitroipa, Mohammed Aboutrieka and Vincent Enyeama following in the order of 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th best on 9, 8, 7 and 6 points respectively.

The Al Ain ace however unable to gather similar favourable points from the other coaches – ultimately resulting in his failure to make the final three-man shortlist.

The award was eventually won by Ivorian star Yaya Toure in a very colourful ceremony held in Lagos on Thursday.

The Manchester City star polled the highest votes to win the prestigious award for the third consecutive time.

Toure polled 373 votes to win the award – beating Nigeria midfielder John Obi Mikel who had 265 votes.

Didier Drogba finished third with 236 points while Jonathan Pitroipa, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Vincent Enyeama finished the 4^th, 5^th and 6^th after polling 202, 202 and 199 respectively.

By Ameenu Shardow