{"id":27765,"date":"2025-11-17T09:04:05","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T09:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=27765"},"modified":"2025-11-17T09:04:05","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T09:04:05","slug":"hakimi-osimhen-salah-shortlisted-for-top-african-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=27765","title":{"rendered":"Hakimi, Osimhen, Salah shortlisted for top African award"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Moroccan Achraf Hakimi, Nigerian Victor Osimhen and Egyptian Mohamed Salah were shortlisted on Sunday for the 2025 African men&#8217;s player of the year award, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) announced.<\/p>\n<p>Moroccans Ghizlane Chebbak and Sanaa Mssoudy and Nigerian Rasheedat Ajibade are the contenders for the African women&#8217;s player of the year title.<\/p>\n<p>Currently injured, full-back Hakimi helped Paris Saint-Germain win the UEFA Champions League for the first time and finish runners-up to Chelsea in the final of the expanded Club World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>If fit, the 27-year-old will lead hosts Morocco in the Africa Cup of Nations from December 21 as they seek to win the competition for the first time since 1976.<\/p>\n<p>Twice winner of the African award, Salah has been struggling lately after an outstanding contribution to Liverpool winning the Premier League a record-equalling 20th time last season.<\/p>\n<p>The 33-year-old won the 2024-25 Premier League Golden Boot award with 29 goals, six more than Alexander Isak, who has since moved from Newcastle United to Liverpool.<\/p>\n<p>Osimhen, from top Turkish outfit Galatasaray, has been outstanding recently for club and country, but some of his achievements will not count as the deadline for the judges was October 15.<\/p>\n<p>That rules out a Champions League hat-trick against Ajax in Amsterdam and two goals in a 2026 World Cup play-off victory over Gabon last Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Paris Saint-Germain star Ajibade was voted the best player at the Africa women&#8217;s Cup of Nations this year after Nigeria came from two goals behind to defeat hosts Morocco 3-2 in the final.<\/p>\n<p>Saudi Arabia-based Chebbak, the daughter of former Moroccan men&#8217;s star Larbi Chebbak, was the leading scorer in the competition with five goals.<\/p>\n<p>Another Moroccan forward, Mssoudy has helped make Rabat club FAR one of the strongest in Africa. They won the CAF women&#8217;s Champion League three years ago and reached the 2025 semi-finals this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>The annual African men&#8217;s and women&#8217;s awards ceremony will be staged in Moroccan capital Rabat on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>CAF technical and development committee members, coaches, former stars and selected media representatives selected the nominees.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Moroccan Achraf Hakimi, Nigerian Victor Osimhen and Egyptian Mohamed Salah were shortlisted on Sunday for the 2025 African men&#8217;s player of the year award, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) announced. Moroccans Ghizlane Chebbak and Sanaa Mssoudy and Nigerian Rasheedat Ajibade are the contenders for the African women&#8217;s player of the year title. Currently injured, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27765\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}