The 2017 CAF African Footballer of the Year was announced at the Movenpick Hotel where we had the likes of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Mohammed Salah and Sadio Mane placed for the top award.

This did not sit down well with a few people in attendance including the media and football administrators had their own ideas as to who should have been included in the top 3.

The President of the Nigerian Football Federation has categorically stated Victor Moses should have been included because he aided Chelsea to win the English Premier League.

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Over the years, there has also been the argument of a player who managed to perform incredibly at the African Cup of Nations deserves to be a part of the nominees or win the ultimate award.

The interesting fact of award shows is that there will always be disagreements in terms of who gets nominated and who wins.

Thereafter, there will be the need for a few people to understand what the awards is all about which may not necessarily be reasons that will sit down well with actual football loving fans.

Popularity contest

Over the years in a number of awards shows which include the FIFA Men Best Player of the Year Award and the Ballon d’or the awards have turned to become a popularity contest.

An example is the dominance of two Superstars Ronaldo and Messi who have won the award for the past 10 years.

Along those years, there have been few instances the award was argued to have been given to different players outside the two.

In 2010, Sneijder had an impressive showing in the UEFA Champions League and the 2010 World Cup. The Dutch midfielder won the 2010 Champions League and had a great tournament that saw his team reach the final of the FIFA World Cup.

The award in that year went to Lionel Messi. Sneijder for all his achievements did not even make the top 3.

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We zoom into the African player of the Year that same year where Samuel Etoo won the African Player of the Year Award ahead of Asamoah Gyan.

There was a lot of bickering from the Ghanaian community who felt Gyan deserved the award.

Now the point we would want to drive at is that most at times, the awards usually go to who gained the most popularity in the year under review. Asamoah Gyan at that point in time emerged BBC Footballer of the Year with his exploits but the CAF Awards for that year appealed to the most popular between the two.

Samuel Etoo had won the award in 2003,2004 and 2005 and his return into the limelight  and winning the Champions League surprisingly saw Samuel Etoo get the nod.

In the 2017 context, we had Victor Moses aid Chelsea to win the English Premier League but then Pierre Emerick Aubameyang and Sadio Mane.

However, the Gabonese and Senegalese had performed astronomically to merit 1st and 2nd runner up. These two personalities carried those performances from the previous year into that of the second year.

Victor Moses on the other hand was a player who had some rejuvenation with Chelsea in his new role and in that sense his popularity amongst Pierre Emerick Aubameyang and Sadio Mane will definitely be miles back.

The issue of Mohammed of how Mohammed Salah making the three man shortlist will be relevant in the next point.

Political Race

In as much as everybody will want to avoid it, politics exist in every sphere of life. In the words of Aristotle "man is a political animal". Now the truth is since the best player is determined by votes it willl definitely have political implications.

On the world stage, the 2006 World Best Player went on to Fabio Cannavaro when everybody knew the runner up Zinedine Zidane had a sensational performance in the 2006 World Cup despite the fact that Italy won the trophy.

Again, it would not have been politically correct to vote Zinedane Zidane the best player for the year 2006. This is because he executed a head butt to the chest of Marco Matterazi and that act was to affect the temperament of voters during the time of voting.

A vote for Zidane would have been a vote for indiscipline which definitely would have given the world a talking point everybody wanted to avoid.

In 2013, Christiano Ronaldo won the Ballon D’Or arguably for political reasons.

In October during the year under review had Sepp Blatter who was FIFA President at the time, he said he preferred Messi to Cristiano Ronaldo and that Messi had lesser hair dresser expenses.

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Ronaldo on his official Facebook page reacted saying the comment by Blatter showed the level of respect FIFA had for him. Blatter apologized to Ronaldo and then the deadline was extended from 15 November to 29 November. Now, on 15th   and 19th November Ronaldo scored 4 goals over two legs to qualify Portugal into the 2014 World Cup ahead of Sweden.

This epic performance in the playoffs was bound to tilt the ahead of voters as both Ronaldo and Messi had average seasons with their respective clubs.

We zoom into the 2017 African Footballer of the Year and we see the last nomination Mohammed Salah in a similar political fix. Mohammed Salah as a matter of fact did not did not need to do much to stand tall as a favorite to win 2017 African Footballer of the Year.

All he needed to do was to aid Egypt to end a 28 year drought of qualifying to World Cup in a dramatic fashion and to lead the pack of goal scorers in the English Premier League getting close to the first half of the season.

Irony of Caveats

The one thing a number of people will always fail to understand is that award winners are based on whoever votes not necessarily based on any criteria. It used to be the case that a player who performs exceptionally well in the World Cup during a World Cup year becomes the World's Best player

That trend has changed into an absolute battle between Messi and Ronaldo which is based on a player who possibly wins the champions League and caps it off with being the top scorer of the competition.

READ ALSO: Nigeria Football Association president believes Victor Moses deserves nomination

African Player of the Year has had the challenge of whether it’s awarded based on a performance in a season or a calendar year. Also, the other confusing bit is whether performance with your club supersedes your performance with your national team.

Pierre Emerick Aubameyang won the award in 2015 and there was a lot of bickering as to whether he deserves it as he had not made much impact with his Gabonese side at the time.

Mohammed Salah has been included looking at what he did with Egypt whereas Mane qualified to the World Cup with Senegal.

Here we are again with Pierre Emerick Aubameyang being sort after because wheter he did not offer anything to the Gabonese squad.

Aubameyang at the moment has done what he did in 2015 that was to score a huge number of goals in the German Bundesliga to be recognized.

Aubameyang had scored 18 league goals at the time he was given the award which was coupled by 29 goals he scored the previous season.