BBC African Sports Personality of the Year

The BBC African Sports Personality of the Year (previously known as the BBC African Sports Star of the Year and the BBC African Footballer of the Year) was an annual award given to the best African sports personality of the year as voted by the BBC radio listeners. Voting was done via SMS and online.

BBC African Sports Personality of the Year
Presented by	BBC World Service
Formerly called	BBC African Sports Personality of the Year BBC African Footballer of the Year
First award	1992
Final award	2021
Most recent winner	Christine Mboma
Television/radio coverage
Network	BBC

History

Initially a sports award, the inaugural winner was Ghana's Abedi Pele in 1992. The only non-footballers to win the award was track and field athlete Frankie Fredericks in 1993, and long-distance track and road running athlete Haile Gebrselassie from Ethiopia, in 1998. The Zambia national football team were posthumous winners of the award in 1994, following the plane crash in the Atlantic Ocean a year previous. The award became centred around football from 2001 onwards, Cameroon's Patrick M'Boma was the last person to win it as a sports award.

Nigeria's Nwankwo Kanu and Jay-Jay Okocha, as well as the Ivory Coast's Yaya Touré and Egypt's Mohamed Salah are the only players to win the award more than once, with two wins.

In 2019, the award was changed back to its initial concept and renamed as the BBC African Sports Personality of the Year to reflect the balance between gender, disability and variety of sports on offer.^[1] However there were no awards in 2019 and in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[2] In 2022, after it was returned back to the sports award, Christine Mboma became the first person to win the award for 2021 season.^[3]

The award was discontinued after 2022.

Winners

Mohamed Salah was named BBC African Sports Personality of the Year in 2017 and 2018

Year	Winner	Football club(s)	Ref.
1992	Abedi Pele	Marseille	[2]
1993	Frankie Fredericks	—	[2]
1994	Zambia national football team	—	[2]
1995	George Weah	Milan	[2]
1996	Emmanuel Amuneke	Sporting CP Barcelona	[2]
1997	Nwankwo Kanu	Internazionale	[2]
1998	Haile Gebrselassie	—	[2]
1999	Nwankwo Kanu (2)	Arsenal	[2]
2000	Patrick M'Boma	Cagliari Parma	[4]
2001	Samuel Kuffour	Bayern Munich	[5]
2002	El Hadji Diouf	Lens Liverpool	[6]
2003	Jay-Jay Okocha	Bolton Wanderers	[7]
2004	Jay-Jay Okocha (2)	Bolton Wanderers	[8]
2005	Mohamed Barakat	Al Ahly	[2]
2006	Michael Essien	Chelsea	[9]
2007	Emmanuel Adebayor	Arsenal	[10]
2008	Mohamed Aboutrika	Al Ahly	[11]
2009	Didier Drogba	Chelsea	[12]
2010	Asamoah Gyan	Sunderland	[13]
2011	André Ayew	Marseille	[14]
2012	Christopher Katongo	Henan Construction	[15]
2013	Yaya Touré	Manchester City	[16]
2014	Yacine Brahimi	Granada Porto	[17]
2015	Yaya Touré (2)	Manchester City	[18]
2016	Riyad Mahrez	Leicester City	[19]
2017	Mohamed Salah	Roma Liverpool	[20]
2018	Mohamed Salah (2)	Liverpool	[21]
2021	Christine Mboma	—	[3]

Wins by country

Nation	Winners
Nigeria	5
Ghana	5
Egypt	4
Ivory Coast	3
Zambia	2
Algeria	2
Namibia	2
Liberia	1
Cameroon	1
Ethiopia	1
Senegal	1
Togo	1

Wins by club

Club	Winners
Liverpool	3
Marseille	2
Chelsea	2
Al Ahly	2
Manchester City	2
Arsenal	2
Bolton Wanderers	2
Bayern Munich	1
Internazionale	1
Barcelona	1
Cagliari	1
Leicester City	1
Milan	1
Granada	1
Henan Construction	1
Sporting CP	1
Sunderland	1
Porto	1
Roma	1
Lens	1
Parma	1

See also

• Football in Africa portal

• African Footballer of the Year