The Confederation of African Football (CAF) unveiled this Wednesday its list of 10 nominees for the African Ballon d'Or, rewarding the continent's best player of the year 2025. A list which unsurprisingly includes the right back of Paris Saint-Germain, Achraf Hakimi.
Author of an exceptional season with the capital club, with whom he notably won the Champions League, the Moroccan international is emerging as the big favorite. However, he will have to be wary of Mohamed Salah, who finished ahead of him in the France Football Ballon d'Or rankings (4e and 6e).
The Moroccan and the Egyptian will compete with the Cameroonian Frank Anguissa (Naples), the Moroccan Oussama Lamlioui (RS Berkane), the Congolese Fiston Mayele (Pyramids), the Gabonese Denis Bouanga (LA FC), the Guinean Serhou Guirassy (Borussia Dortmund), the Nigerian Victor Osimhen (Galatasaray) as well as the Senegalese Iliman Ndiaye (Everton) and Pape Matar Sarr (Tottenham).
Notable absentees
Note that among the 10 nominees, there is no Algerian player. Brilliant with Brentford last season, Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa were also not selected. Just like Omar Marmoush, who exploded with Frankfurt before joining Manchester City last winter.
As a reminder, the African Ballon d'Or is based on a jury made up of members of the Confederation of African Football, journalists, coaches, captains of member associations and representatives of clubs participating in the group stages of CAF interclub competitions. This is the big difference with Ballon d'Or France Football, which is awarded following a vote by 100 juries from the top 100 countries in the FIFA rankings.
