As at midday this Monday, favourite to win the 2023 CAF Award top honour, Victor Osimhen is still being expected. An Algerian journalist, Walid Daksi of Radio Algerie Internationale informed Sports Village Square that Victor Osimhen will be a glaring absentee from the ceremony as the club was unwilling to release him owing to UEFA Chmapions League on Tuesday.
Napoli will host Portuguese sides, SC Braga in a Group C Champions League match. Also anticipated to be absent is Egypt and Liverpool’s Mohammed Salah.
That may leave just Achraf Hakimi as the only nominee for the top award who will be present. Sports Village Square recalls that in 2007 CAF Awards, held in Lome, Togo in February 2008, Mali’s Frédéric Kanouté, initial second place was given the award owing to absence of front runner, Didier Drogba who stayed back in Ghana as the even took place during the Africa Cup of Nations in Ghana.
Drogba was relegated to the third place behind Ghana’s Michael Essien. That may possible be the case in the basence of Osimhen and the presence of Achraf Hakimi.
But a source close to Osimhen informed that the player will certainly make it to the event as he had informed he would fly to Marrakech Menara Airport in a chattered private jet and return immediately after and on time for his club’s Wednesday UEFA Champions League fixture.
