Nigeria’s female striker, Asisat Oshoala, has won the 2023 CAF Women’s Player of The Year at the ongoing Confederation of African Football awards.
The award makes Oshoala’s sixth award in the category.
The ‘Agba baller’ crooner is regarded as one of the most celebrated African female footballers of all time and the first Super Falcons player to score at three consecutive FIFA World Cups.
Oshoala had become a household name in the Nigerian and African football space. Having made her senior team debut in September 2013, Oshoala won the prestigious women’s football award in 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2022, and recently 2023.
In her acceptance speech at the awards venue in Morocco, the Barcelona Femeni forward appreciated her coaches from the grassroots to the national and club levels.
She also urged African football federations to unite and work together to give the continent’s football a great facelift.
She said, “This night, I would love to use this opportunity to thank everyone who has been part of my journey from grassroots football to the national level to the club side. Because without you, my coaches, and my teammates, there will be no me.
“Football is a team sport; it’s a team game and I urge all the federations in Africa to please come together; let’s work together and build our continent. Let’s make it the best in the world.”
“It is very possible; it happened in the last men’s World Cup; we saw what happened, and we shocked the world. In the last World Cup, all the national teams that represented Africa in Australia made history,” adding that “before the next World Cup, we can get better, we can do better and we can win it for sure. Because at the end of the day, if we don’t support ourselves, nobody will come to Africa; nobody will come to this continent to support us.
“We have to work together as a team because football is a team sport. Let’s start at home and go to the world and conquer it.”
(Punch)
