Didier Drogba Doesn’t Want to Be 2008 African Footballer of the Year

The Confederation of African Football named its shortlist of five for 2008 African Footballer of the Year yesterday, and Didier Drogba’s name was on there. Problem is: Didier Drogba wants nothing to do with the award.

Seems odd to not want to be named the best player in your confederation, but Drogba has his reasons: After winning the award in 2006 (and accepting it memorably, see picture) Drogba was told he’d won the 2007 version too.

Brilliant. Except it wasn’t.

Drogba couldn’t make the awards ceremony, because it was being held in February 2008 at the same time as the Africa Cup of Nations. In a very very very bad PR move, CAF told Drogba that if he stayed with his Cote d’Ivoire teammates in Ghana and didn’t attend their ceremony in Togo, he wouldn’t be getting the award.

Double D said keep it then, and CAF gave the award to Fredi Kanoute instead.

Here was Drogba’s reaction at the time:

“In the end I declined to go to the ceremony. I did that for my team-mates and because within the group we had been through an unfortunate death. I was going to send my wife to the awards in case there was a prize to receive, when I was informed by somebody from CAF that she would not be welcomed, and that the rules could change if I wasn’t there and the award be given to the person who had finished second. That shocked me.”

“From now on I’ve decided to withdraw from all voting for CAF awards. It has lost a lot of value in my opinion.”

Take that CAF. And I’m siding with Drogba here. When a key qualification for you winning an award is that you can make it to the ceremony, that award definitely loses some luster. Maybe CAF are taking that Woody Allen quote about “Eighty percent of success is showing up” a little too literally.

Here is the CAF shortlist:

Didier Drogba (Chelsea & Cote d’Ivoire)
Michael Essien (Chelsea & Ghana)
Emmanuel Adebayor (Arsenal & Togo)
Amr Zaki (Wigan & Egypt)
Mohamed Aboutrika (Al-Ahly & Egypt)

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Category: Africa