Hakimi, Salah and El Melewi are among the ten candidates for the Best African Player Award

The Confederation of African Football revealed on Wednesday the ten players nominated for the Best Player in Africa award, including the Arab-Moroccan trio Ashraf Hakimi and Osama El Melewi and the Egyptian Mohamed Salah.

The competition appears to be raging between Liverpool’s English star Salah, who is seeking to win the award for the third time after 2017 and 2018, and Paris Saint-Germain’s French defender Hakimi, who is aspiring to it for the first time after losing it in the last two editions to Nigerians Victor Osimhen when he was defending the Italian Napoli colors, and Ademola Lookman, who was crowned with the Italian Atalanta in the European League title. League” in 2024.

Salah (33 years old) contributed to the qualification of the “Pharaohs” to the 2026 World Cup, and he also won the English Premier League title and was crowned the competition’s top scorer and best passer.

On the other hand, Hakimi (26 years old), the second captain in the ranks of Saint-Germain, contributed to the capital team being crowned with a historic quadruple (the league, the cup, and the local Champions Cup, especially the European Champions League for the first time in its history), in addition to reaching the final of the first edition of the Club World Cup before losing to the English club Chelsea.

For his part, Al-Melewi (29 years old) excelled with his country’s reserve team by leading it to the African Nations Cup title in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, where he was crowned top scorer in the competition with six goals, including a brace in the final match at the expense of Madagascar (3-2).

The list included Democratic Congolese Pyramids international striker Feston Mayele, who contributed greatly to the Egyptian team winning the first three titles in its history: the African Champions League at the expense of South Africa’s Sundowns, the Africa-Asia-Pacific Cup in the second edition of the Confederations Cup by scoring a hat-trick in victory over Al-Ahly Jeddah of Saudi Arabia 3-1, and the African Super Cup at the expense of RS Berkane 1-0.

It also included the Gabonese striker for Los Angeles FC, the second top scorer in the American League, the attacking midfielder for Napoli from Cameroon, Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa, his former colleague in the southern club, currently Turkish Galatasaray striker Osimhen, who won the award the year before last, and the latter’s compatriot Lookman.

The list includes German-Guinean international striker Borussia Dortmund, Serhou Geraci, and Senegalese players Ilman Ndiaye (Everton, England) and Pape Matar Sarr (Tottenham, England).

A committee of technical experts from the Continental Confederation, experienced coaches, African football legends, and media representatives selected from a number of countries prepared the preliminary list for the various categories, taking into account the performance of the candidates in the period between January 6 and October 15, 2025.

Wehbe is among the candidates for best coach
The coach of the Moroccan national team for the under-20 category, Mohamed Wehbe, who led the “Atlas Cubs” to win the 2025 World Cup title in Chile last Sunday, is competing for the best coach award with his compatriots, Walid Regragui, the coach of the first team, and Tariq Sektioui, who won the African Cup of Nations title with the reserve team this year.

The list also included the coach of the Pharaohs, Hossam Hassan, the coach of Tunisia, Sami Trabelsi, his compatriot, the coach of RS Berkane, Moin Chaabani, the Croatian coach of the Pyramids club, Kronoslav Jurcic, and Pedro Leitao Brito, nicknamed “Bobishta”, who led his country, Cape Verde, to the World Cup finals for the first time in its history, along with the coach of Senegal, Pape Thiaw, and Madagascar. Romuald Racotondrape.

Four Arab players are competing among ten for the best goalkeeper award: Moroccans Yassine Bono (Al Hilal Saudi Arabia) and Mounir El Mohamady (Nahdet Berkane), Egyptian Ahmed El Shenawy (Pyramids), and Tunisian Ayman Dahman (Sfaxien).

The list of ten candidates for the Best Local Player Award included seven Arabs: Egyptians Ahmed Sami (Pyramids), Ibrahim Adel (Pyramids, who currently plays for Al-Jazeera of the Emirates), Imam Ashour (Al-Ahly), Moroccans Mohamed Harimat (Royal Army), Mohamed El-Shaibi (Pyramids), Osama El-Melewi (Nahdet Berkane), and Algerian Ismail Belkasmi (Ahly Tripoli of Libya).

The list of candidates for the best promising player included three Moroccans: Abdallah Ouazan (Ajax Amsterdam, Netherlands), Hossam El Sadiq (Ittihad Tawarka), and Othman Maama (Watford, England).

The teams of Morocco, Morocco U-20, Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia were among the candidates for the best team award, along with Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Senegal and South Africa.
The list of candidates for the best club included Chabab Belouizdad, Chabab Constantine (Algeria), Pyramids, Nahdet Berkane, and Al-Hilal of Sudan.