BBC Online :
Former Liverpool team-mates Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah have both been named on a list of 30 nominees for the Confederation of African Football’s (CAF) Men’s Player of the Year award for 2021-22.
Mane, who joined German champions Bayern Munich last week, had the upper hand over Salah at international level in recent months, with Senegal beating Egypt in the Africa Cup of Nations final in February before winning their 2022 World Cup play-off tie the month after.
The Senegalese is the last man to have been crowned Africa’s best, back in 2019 – when Nigeria’s Asisat Oshoala won the women’s prize – since when the awards have been cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
At club level, Mane and Salah, both 30, won the FA Cup and League Cup in England last season but narrowly missed out on the Premier League title before the Reds lost 1-0 to Real Madrid in the European Champions League final.
Salah, who has claimed the prize twice, ended the club season with a share of the Premier League Golden Boot, along with Tottenham Hotspur and South Korea striker Son Heung-min.
The Egyptian won both the Player of the Season awards from the Football Writers’ Association and the Professional Footballers’ Association.
Algeria’s Riyad Mahrez, a Premier League winner with Manchester City, is also prominent on a list where two of Africa’s traditionally weaker nations, The Gambia and Comoros, have rare representation – in the shape of Musa Barrow and Youssouf M’Changama – after fine Nations Cup debuts.
