Caf Awards: Why Yaya Toure’s Anger Is Not Justified

From L-R, Andre Ayew, Pierre Aubameyang and Yaya Toure at the glo Caf Awards in Abuja on Thursday 

Photo: Getty Images

In a gala night in Abuja on Thursday, Caf crowned Gabonese striker Pierre Emerick Aubameyang as the 2015 African player of the year. The 25 year old striker had a good calendar year for his German club, Borussia Dortmund. This season he has 18 goals from 17 league appearances and has scored 63 goals in over a hundred appearances for the Signal Iduna Park outfit since he joined in 2013.

However, the player who won the award four times in the last four years before he was dethroned on Thursday did not take the fact that he lost out to the Gabonese striker likely.  According to him he expected to be crowned the winner for captaining his country to the African Cup of Nations title early in 2015. For this he has strongly criticised the African football governing body. In an interview with Radio France International, he said

“"I think that's what makes the shame of Africa," 

"To behave in this way is indecent! But what can we do?"

"We Africans, we do not show that Africa is important to us," 

"We give more priority to what's going on elsewhere than in our own continent. This is what is appalling. "I give an example: it's Lionel Messi who wins all the trophies but it's Ronaldo who is Ballon d'Or. What would you say? It would be unfair."

"Yaya will look after himself, and let Africa look after itself. Like I'm often told, you shouldn't worry too much about Africa, because Africa will be the first to let you down." 

Despite his emotional outburst after failing to win the award for what would have been an unprecedented fifth consecutive time, the question is, is he justified in his outburst?

Firstly he lost narrowly to Aubameyang with the 25 year old winning the award by just seven points of 143-136, which means it was a close shave, and the Gabonese victory holds much to his strong performances for Dortmund in the past year, because Gabon were knocked out of the group stages of the African Cup of Nations.

Yet, Yaya Toure’s outburst is not justified for the simple reason that the previous four Caf player of the year awards he won was purely down to what he won with his club side Manchester City, and not his performance for his country the Ivory Coast. It was the same criteria that were used to hand him the award in the last four years that was used to grant same to Aubameyang. Though, the Gabonese did not win a trophy in Germany in 2015, but he was a consistent goal scorer. For Toure to now claim that for the fact that he captained his country to the Afcon title, he should have been the winner reeks of sour grapes.

It is an individual award for which your performance for your country and your club determines how a player wins it. If anything Yaya Toure was a shadow of himself in the Afcon tournament in Equatorial Guinea. Players like Gervinho and Max Gradel had more influence on the Ivorian team in the tournament than Toure that failed to really influence proceedings.

The Ivorian won the Afcon title in 2015, what you have to ask yourself is what were Yaya Toure’s contributions to his country’s success on the field besides being captain? He seldom influenced proceedings, and was largely a lumbering figure in midfield. His best Afcon tournament for the Ivorians was in 2012, when he was an influential figure, but they lost in the final to Zambia on penalties after being the better team throughout the tournament.

Apart from winning the Afcon title, there is the consideration of how influential a player was to the triumph of his country in such tournament. If winning a tournament is purely the criteria for winning such individual awards, then one of the German players such as Thomas Muller should have been crowned the Ballon’Or winner for 2014 because Germany won their Fourth World Cup in Brazil, but it was Ronaldo that won that year’s award, despite the disappointing World Cup that Portugal had where they crashed out of the group stages. He won that award on the strength of his performance for Real Madrid that year.

On these grounds, Yaya Toure’s outburst is not justified as Pierre Emerick Aubameyang was the best African player of 2015 on the strength of his performances for Borussia Dortmund and for leading Gabon to the latter stages of the 2018 World Cup qualifiers.

Although many would obviously disagree.