Adebayor Wins African Player of the Year Award

Congratulations to Togo and Arsenal striker Emmanuel Adebayor who today won the Confederation of African Football's (CAF) Player of the Year Award.

The Arsenal scoring machine won the award ahead of BBC African Footballer of the Year Mohamed Aboutrika of Egypt.

The award was decided by a poll of African national team coaches, and CAF's figures gave Adebayor 74 points to Aboutrika's 53.

Adebayor scored 24 goals in the English Premier League last season. He also scored four goals in three games for Togo in their World Cup qualifiers.

"I'm highly honored by what I have done in African football," said Adebayor at the awards ceremony in the Nigerian city of Lagos.

"Now that the World Cup is coming close and is in Africa, we'll work hard to win the championship."

Aboutrika won the Inter-Clubs Player of the Year award, for locally based players.

His club, Al Ahly, was voted Club of the Year, while African Cup of Nations winners Egypt won the National Team of the Year award and their coach Hassan Shehata was voted Coach of the Year.

MY POV: Great honor for the lanky striker. While I thought Aboutrika was the best African player this past year, one can't really argue Adebayor's merits. He had a sensational season and deserves the accolades.

Congratulations once again!

2010 African Qualifiers Are Confusing!

Interesting article from the Bangkok Post about how confusing the 2010 African World Cup qualifiers are. As they put it, 'FIFA and the Confederation of African Football (CAF) are on course to score an own goal' with their qualifier rules.

Basically, there's a situation where South Africa may have to lose or draw to make it to the next round (weird, I know. Play along).

South Africa spokesman Sipho Nkumane said the situation was strange, to say the least. "It is a difficult situation. How can we tell our players that they are not allowed to win a game? We will have to look at all the permutations after our game against Nigeria and then see what we have to do. The same situation could, of course, also arise in other groups."

A FIFA spokesman said that they worked on the premise that all teams would have to win games to ensure that they finished first or second.

"Teams have to win their matches if they want to make sure of winning their groups or finishing second. If South Africa do not win their game against Equatorial Guinea and Sierra Leone beat Nigeria, then they will probably not finish second at all.

"We will have to see the results of all the games to know all the different possibilities," he said.

So how did this happen? Here's the South Africa scenario.

In Group 4 of the qualifiers, where South Africa is close to being knocked out of the African Cup of Nations (the World Cup qualifiers also serve as the 2010 African Cup of Nations qualifiers), the 2010 hosts could be in a situation where they'll be eliminated if they win their final game against Equatorial Guinea.

After drawing and losing to Sierra Leone, Bafana Bafana face a do-or-die game against Nigeria this weekend. If they fail to win, they will certainly be eliminated from the 2010 Nations Cup.

If they win, much will depend on the result of the other game between Sierra Leone and Equatorial Guinea.

A victory for Sierra Leone will all but guarantee an early exit for the 1996 African champions.

A draw or a victory for the visiting side from Equatorial Guinea will keep alive South Africa's chances of qualifying for the finals of the 2010 Nations Cup in Angola, on condition they do not win their final game in Equatorial Guinea.

South Africa, who are currently on four points behind the already- qualified Nigerians, would move to seven points should they win. Sierra Leone would remain on four or move to five if they lose or draw to Equatorial Guinea.

Equatorial Guinea would move to four points (with a draw) or six (with a victory).

South Africa then faces Equatorial Guinea in their final game and would finish second if they win that game. In that case, however, Equatorial Guinea would in all probability finish last in the group and the six points that South Africa secured against them would be scratched, leaving South Africa with four points - too few to advance as one of the best-eight second-placed teams.

If, however, South Africa do not win, Equatorial Guinea could finish third and South Africa keep the three or four points they secured against them and as a result could advance to the next round with six or seven points.

Umm, WHAT??

From the BBC, a guide to African qualifying ...

The Confederation of African Football (Caf) has detailed a complicated formula to determine which teams progress to the second qualifying group stage for the 2010 World Cup and Africa Cup of Nations.

The 12 group winners in the first group phase and the eight best runners-up will advance to the second stage.

But a fair amount of mathematics will be required to discover those best runners-up.

One of the 12 groups has only three teams, and Caf wants to give the runners-up in that group a fair chance of qualifying.

So rather than simply looking at points gained and goal difference to determine the best second-placed teams, a re-calculation will take place.

The runners-up in Group 11, which has three teams will have their statistics unchanged.

But in the other groups, the points and goal difference that the second-placed teams had against the fourth-placed team will be erased.

These new totals will then be used to determine the eight best runners-up, using points gained and then goal difference, then goals scored.

Caf says that a play-off match will take place in November should there be a tie for the eighth best runners-up spot.

Second stage

The 20 teams that qualify for the second group stage will be drawn in five groups of four teams.

The group winners qualify for the 2010 World Cup, but should hosts South Africa win a group, there will be a recalculation to determine the team that goes to the World Cup.

All results against South Africa would be erased and a new table calculated.

The first three teams in each group will qualify for the 2010 Nations Cup.

If Angola reach the second group stage, the three teams drawn in their group will automatically qualify for the Nations Cup.

MY POV: I dunno about you, but my head hurts reading the above.
How about we just wait and see what happens this weekend, OK??
Why couldn't they make this more straight forward? Yikes ...

Coach Licensing in Africa?

I'm back after a long layoff ...

Lots has happened since I last wrote a few weeks back, but here's one tidbit from the BBC I found particularly interesting.

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) will institute a licensing system which will force coaches to fulfill certain criteria before coaching in Africa.

The rules, to be introduced by next year, mean all coaches must hold either a management diploma or a Pro License coaching certificate.

According to CAF's development director Hussien Abdel-Moniem, the new system is aimed at weeding out ill-equipped coaches in Africa.

"Many coaches in Africa are now working haphazardly with their own experiences and talent but this is not right," Abdel Moniem told BBC Sport.

"Without these licences nobody can approach the clubs or national teams to be a coach in any part of Africa in the future. Coaches in Africa must pass an exam to have a license before coaching at any level. We will work jointly with the federations across Africa to ensure that this is successful."

Several countries in Europe require coaches to hold either a management diploma or a UEFA Pro License coaching certificate before taking charge of a team.

MY POV: I think this is a GREAT idea.

Africans wanting to coach will now have a system in place to teach them tactics, coaching methodologies, training theories and so much more.

The implementation of these guidelines also means there will be a standardization of goals to reach in order to become a coach.

What this means in that there will be better-trained coaches, better systems put into place and more opportunities to learn the sport.

In other words, more opportunities for Africans to be at the helm at club and national levels.

This can only be a good thing.

African Player of the Year Idiocy: Drogba? Kanoute?

A friend of mine suggested I inject more controversy into my blog this weekend. Well, how about this?

I think the Confederation of African Football (CAF) are shooting themselves in the foot over the awarding of the African Player of the Year award to Didier Drogba.

For those that don't know the story, let me summarize.

Star-striker Didier Drogba was supposedly told by members of the CAF that he'd won their prestigious African Player of the Year award this weekend. The award is voted on by national coaches from 53 African countries.

Unfortunately, Drogba couldn't attend the awards ceremony in Togo on Friday. He had more important issues to attend to. Namely, a quarterfinal match against Guinea in the African Cup of Nations in Ghana on Sunday.

"I was told if I didn't appear the rules would change and the prize would go to the runner-up," Drogba said.

The award did go to the runner-up, Mali striker Frederic Kanoute. No doubt Kanoute is a wonderful player. But Drogba had an excellent season. So the Chelsea striker and Ivorian captain decided to pull his name from all further contentions of the award.

"This attitude doesn't honor Africa so I've pulled out of future elections."

Drogba, who won the 2006 award, said it made no sense to have the awards ceremony in another country while such a high-profile African event was going on in Ghana.

"If I refused to go to Lome (in Togo) it was first for my team-mates, as you don't organise such an event just two days before a quarter-final," the Chelsea forward said.

"I didn't go as well because the son of Ulrich Stilieke (the former Ivory Coast coach) has died. We're all working for the African continent, there's a huge media presence in Ghana for a competition that was heavily criticised 10 years ago. So there comes a time when we all have to pull together."

Ivory Coast team spokesman Jean-Claude Djacus said, “CAF has brought itself into disrepute. They called Didier on the eve of the ceremony to tell him they would give the award to Kanoute if he did not come. Didier is now saying that he does not want to be part of the 2008 vote."

I couldn't agree more with Drogba.

How silly is it to have the awards ceremony take place in Togo while the Cup of Nations, the premier African footballing event, is happening in Ghana? While it's true that Tome is not far from Accra (about 118 miles away from my research), why have Drogba travel that distance a mere two days before an important quarterfinal?

Why not hold the ceremony in Accra or another city in Ghana to allow Drogba the chance to be present?

This is another example of the CAF shooting themselves in the foot. From my outsider perspective, it's almost as if the CAF wants to remain insular. The CAF doesn't care what the outside world thinks.



You'd imagine the CAF would want to give the award to their best player, not the runner-up. This isn't to say Kanoute isn't a wonderful player. I love watching him at Sevilla and rate him an efficient striker. I'm not trying to disrespect Kanoute. I'm just trying to say that he finished in 2nd place. The award should go to Didier. And Didier couldn't make it because he was preparing for an important match. How could the CAF do what they did?

Drogba is pure class, out-and-out one of the top 3 strikers in the world when on form. Why not promote this fine talent? Why snub him during your premier tournament?

This should be a time for celebration, not for dissension. Why put these players in this position?

Ghana midfielder Michael Essien took time out from preparing with Ghana for their Sunday quarter-final with Nigeria in nearby Accra to attend the dinner.

Initially he had been refused permission to go by Claude Le Roy, but the Ghana coach relented after pressure from Essien's team-mates.

Good that he came. But imagine if Ghana had lost. You think fans and pundits wouldn't call Essien selfish for going?

Can anyone blame Drogba for not going?

Shame on the CAF for blundering this awards ceremony.