African Footballer of the year: How coaches gave it to Aubameyang

Friday, January 8, 2016 11:39 am

Taiwo Adelu

Pierre Emerick Aubameyang

It has been discovered that the new African football king, Gabonese Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang received overwhelming support from coaches of national teams on the continent before he was adjudged the new African footballer of the year for 2015.

The Borussia Dortmund of Germany star dethroned Yaya Toure of Ivory coast, who had won it four times with 143 votes. The Manchester City star got 136 votes, while Andre Ayew got 112 votes.

In the breakdown of the voting patterns of the national team coaches released by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) after the awards early on Friday, out of the 43 coaches that exclusively voted, 18 of them gave Aubameyang their highest five votes each.

These votes came from coaches of countries such as South Africa, Gambia, Liberia, Libya, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cape Verde, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Madagascar and Malawi.

Others are Mauritania, Mauritius, Rwanda and Somalia.

He got four votes each from seven coaches, while eight of the coaches gave him three votes each. Others gave him two votes and one vote, while some did not even consider him for a vote. These coaches are from Algeria, Botswana, DR Congo, Egypt, Ghana, Morocco, Sudan, Togo and Tunisia.

Interestingly, Nigeria’s Super Eagles coach, Sunday Oliseh gave the new King four votes, while the Ghanaian star, Ayew received Oliseh’s highest vote of five votes with Toure getting three votes.

Meanwhile, Aubameyang has described the honour of winning the award as a well deserved one for Gabonese football. He said Gabon should be seen as one of the strong forces on the continent, adding that his country has quality and good players who are doing well in their career.

According to him, Gabon has a good national team who produced him and will continue to produce good players like him.

Aubameyang’s Bundesliga club, Borussia Dortmund have also congratulated the new African football King on their twitter handle, saying “African Footballer of the Year!! Oh yes, he made it! Congrats to our No. 17 @Aubameyang7.”