The African Ballon d’Or ceremony turned into a fiasco!

CAF pulled out all the stops this Monday evening. On the occasion of the CAF Awards ceremony, all of Africa was dressed to the nines in Marrakech. This year, no one really knew who would win the continent’s highest honor: the African Ballon d’Or. While Serhou Guirassy and Ademola Lookman had had a head start for many months, Achraf Hakimi’s excellent start to the season with Paris Saint-Germain had instilled doubt in the heads of several African observers. From then on, the possibility of seeing the Moroccan win the trophy for the first time was made a certainty quite quickly after concordant information from several sources which pointed in this direction.

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In the end, nothing went as planned. Under the eyes of his family and Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, present for the occasion, the Moroccan right defender saw Ademola Lookman win. Author of a more than solid last season with Nigeria and Atalanta Bergamo, the 27-year-old striker managed to reach the final of the last CAN and won the Europa League by scoring a memorable hat-trick against Bayer Leverkusen undefeated until then. However, despite all these achievements, the former Fulham player was clearly not unanimous on social networks, where many Moroccans questioned the legitimacy of his reward.

Morocco cries scandal, Yassine Benzia prefers to laugh about it

Some close to the former Real Madrid selection even stepped up to claim that he would have deserved to get this African BO. This is particularly the case of Soufiane Rahimi and Rachid Benmahmoud. While the Al-Ain striker appeared in story with his former teammate at the Olympics with a gold medal emoji, Walid Regragui’s assistant coach did the same by adding a shrugging emoji. This Monday, Moroccans were not the only ones to cry foul against the African Ballon d’Or ceremony. Indeed, named in the category of best African hopeful with his compatriot Oumar Diakité, Karim Konaté expressed his incomprehension after seeing Lamine Camara win this title for the second year in a row.

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On his social networks, the RB Salzburg striker shared the famous photo of his elder Didier Drogba when the latter played at Chelsea and described the refereeing of the match against FC Barcelona in 2009 as a “fucking shame” . Finally, Yassine Benzia also stepped up to the plate. Author of a magnificent goal against South Africa with Algeria, the player trained at OL was named in the category of the best African goal of the year. Finally, the distinction was awarded to Mabululu, the Angola striker who had scored a less beautiful goal, according to the former Lyonnais, during the last CAN. Under the CAF publication announcing this award, the Qarabag striker responded with crying laughing emojis. You will have understood, the African Ballon d’Or ceremony this Monday is still in the throats of many people in Africa…