Ivory Coast captain and Manchester City star Yaya Toure has admitted that he was disappointed after narrowly missing out on a record fifth straight CAF African Player of the Year Award.
Yaya Toure admits he's gutted after missing fifth CAF award
“I’m quite disappointed but I don’t want to complain too much you know what I mean, I just want to give credit as well to Aubameyang as well, he has been doing well this year and we are quite disappointed as well and now we just have to play football and try to do our own best,” he said.
“This is not the time to complain. We will all go back and continue to work hard.”
Toure had won the award for an unprecedented four years in succession from 2011 to 2015 and given his form at Manchester City and that he led Cote d’Ivoire to victory in the African Cup of Nations in 2015, he was the favourite and could easily have won a fifth award.
The 32-year-old midfielder was beaten to it by free-scoring Gabon and Borussia Dortmund star Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who tallied 143 points to upset Yaya in the vote done by coaches and technical directors of CAF member-nations.
Aubameyang is the second player born in Europe to win the award after Frederic Kanoute, the Parisian-born Mali international.
Aubameyang’s father was captain of Gabon and played professionally in France. His mother is Spanish, he was born in France but raised in Italy.
The African Footballer of the Year is decided by a vote of coaches or technical directors of all Africa’s national teams.
Ghana international Dede Ayew, who left Olympique Marseille in France for Swansea City in mid-year, was third with 112 votes. His father Abedi Pele won the award three times from 1991 to 1993.