Nigeria Missing As CAF Awards Return To Lagos After 12 Years

• CAF has brought forward the 2026 CAF Awards to December 2 in Lagos, returning the ceremony to Nigeria for the first time since 2014.

• But the hosts will have no representative in the Men’s or Women’s Player of the Year categories, with no Super Eagles or Super Falcons player nominated for either award.

Nigeria will host the 2026 CAF Awards, but the country will have no nominee in either the Men’s or Women’s Player of the Year category when Africa’s biggest football night returns to Lagos.

CAF confirmed on Tuesday that the ceremony has been moved forward from December 7 to Wednesday, December 2, at the Professor Wole Soyinka Centre for Culture and the Arts, formerly the National Theatre.

The event begins at 7pm Nigerian time and will mark CAF Awards’ first return to Lagos since 2014.

For the first time since the Women’s Player of the Year award was introduced in 2001, no Super Falcons player has been nominated.

No Super Eagles player has made the Men’s Player of the Year shortlist either, the first time Nigeria has been absent from the category since 2015.

Victor Osimhen and Ademola Lookman, both former winners of the award, were left out of the 10-man shortlist. Nigeria also have no nominations in the men’s goalkeeper, coach, club or national team categories.

There is, however, some Nigerian representation in the youth and women’s awards.

Flamingos, who have been crowned world champions, star Janet Akekoromowei and Oluwakemi Adegbuyi are nominated for Best Young Talent, while Edo Queens goalkeeper Christiana Uzoma is in contention for Best Goalkeeper.

CAF did not officially explain the decision to move the ceremony forward by five days. However, a CAF official told Nigeria’s Guardian that European clubs were reluctant to release players for the original December 7 date, raising fears that several nominees would be absent.

Voting is already underway and will run from November 5 to November 20 across the men’s and women’s categories.

CAF member associations, clubs, eligible coaches and national-team captains are involved in the process, with independent monitoring in place to protect the integrity of the results.

The 2026 ceremony will honour excellence across 18 categories, including Men’s and Women’s Player of the Year, Coach of the Year, Goalkeeper of the Year, Young Player of the Year, Club of the Year and National Team of the Year.

For Nigerian football fans, though, the biggest talking point will not be who wins in Lagos; it will be why no Nigerian player is even in the race for Africa’s biggest individual prizes