CAF Awards 2026 Return to Lagos: Moroccan Dominance and Salah's Omission
Lagos will be back at the centre of African football in 2026. CAF confirmed on Tuesday that the CAF Awards ceremony will take place on Wednesday 2 December in Nigeria’s biggest city, returning to Lagos for the first time since 2014.
The iconic Professor Wole Soyinka Centre for Culture and the Arts – better known as the National Theatre – will stage a show that stretches across 18 categories. The headline honours remain the same: Best Player in Africa for men and women, alongside awards for Best Coach, Best Goalkeeper, Best Young Player, Best Club and Best National Team.
Voting is already under way. CAF opened the window on 5 November, with ballots to be cast until 20 November by member associations, clubs, national team coaches and captains eligible to vote. The confederation has underlined its push for fairness and transparency, bringing in independent oversight to monitor the process and safeguard the integrity of the final lists.
Moroccan wave, Salah shock
The first nomination lists have thrown up a clear storyline: Moroccan dominance and one glaring omission.
Moroccan players headline the race for the 2026 Best African Player award. Paris Saint-Germain full-back Achraf Hakimi, Real Madrid winger Brahim Diaz and Bayern Munich’s Ismael Saibari all make the cut, underlining the country’s depth at the highest level of European football.
But one name is missing. Mohamed Salah, now at Trabzonspor, does not appear among the nominees. For a player who has defined the award conversation for much of the past decade, his absence is the standout shock of this year’s lists and will be fiercely debated across the continent.
Young guns flying the Arab flag
The Best Young Player in Africa category carries a strong Arab flavour.
Four emerging talents will represent the region: Morocco’s Ayoub Bouaddi of Manchester City, Egypt’s Hamza Abdelkarim of Barcelona, Morocco’s Abdellah Ouazane of Ajax, and Algeria’s Ibrahim Maza from Bayer Leverkusen. It is a quartet that reflects both the reach of African academies and the growing trust major European clubs place in North African prospects.
Zamalek in the hunt for Best Club
The Best Club in Africa shortlist reads like a roll call of the continent’s powerhouses – with a few intriguing contenders.
South Africa’s Mamelodi Sundowns and Algeria’s USM Alger stand out among the 10 nominees, joined by CR Belouizdad and a Moroccan trio: AS FAR, Olympic Safi and Berkane. Egypt’s Zamalek carry Cairo’s hopes, while ASEC Mimosas, representing the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan’s Al-Hilal and Tunisia’s Esperance complete a fiercely competitive field.
Egyptian and Moroccan duel for Best Coach
On the touchline, the Best Coach in Africa award sets up a compelling Arab contest.
Egypt national team manager Hossam Hassan is in the frame, as is Zamalek coach Moatamed Gamal. Across the North African divide stand Walid Regragui, the former Morocco boss who led the Atlas Lions to global prominence, and Mohamed Ouahbi, the current coach of the Moroccan national side. Their nominations underline how heavily Egypt and Morocco now shape the tactical direction of the African game.
Goalkeepers under the spotlight
Between the posts, Egypt again has a strong hand.
Al-Ahly’s Mostafa Shobeir and Zamalek’s El-Mahdi Soliman both feature in the Best Goalkeeper category. They face heavyweight competition from Morocco’s Yassine Bounou of Al-Hilal, his compatriot Ahmed Reda Tagnaouti of AS FAR, Algeria’s Oussama Benbot from USM Alger, and Senegal’s Edouard Mendy of Al-Ahli.
It is a shortlist that spans domestic dominance, European pedigree and recent continental success, and it will test voters’ sense of what matters most in judging a goalkeeper’s year.
Trezeguet, Shehata and a crowded Best Player field
The main individual prize, Best Player in Africa, still carries a strong Arab presence despite Salah’s omission.
Egyptian winger Mahmoud Hassan Trezeguet, the former Al-Ahly man now with Al-Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, is among the nominees, as is Zamalek midfielder Mohamed Shehata. Morocco supply further contenders in Mohamed Rabie Hrimat, the ex-AS FAR midfielder now at Al-Shamal in Qatar, Berkane’s Mounir Chouiar, and Olympic Safi’s Soufiane Rahimi and Soufiane El-Mouden.
Their inclusion ensures North Africa will again have a loud voice when the continent’s top individual honour is handed out in Lagos.
For now, the voting quietly unfolds behind the scenes. Come December, the lights of the National Theatre will do the rest – and Africa will find out whether this new Moroccan wave, the rising Arab generation and the shock of Salah’s absence mark a changing of the guard in the continent’s football hierarchy.
