Mahrez beats Mane to BBC African footballer of the Year award

Riyad Mahrez has defeated Sadio Mane of Liverpool and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang of Dortmund to become the BBC African Footballer of the year.

Mahrez was selected through an online worldwide fan vote by BBC and announced on BBC Focus on African TV on Monday evening.

The Leicester winger was the only finalist not to have been previously shortlisted for the award.

He was one of the stars of Leicester’s remarkable Premier League title-winning campaign last season and was named PFA Player of the Year at the end of the campaign.

Sadio Mane, who came second in the vote, scored 15 goals in 2016, finishing the season strongly as Southampton picked up sixth spot, before having a flying start to life at Liverpool following a £34million move to Anfield.

Aubameyang, who won the award last year, has netted 31 goals in all competitions so far in 2016 and was named Bundesliga’s best player last campaign as Dortmund finished second behind Bayern Munich.

Manchester City’s Toure won the award four times in a row prior to that, while Andre Ayew finished third in the poll on two occasions.

Didier Drogba, Samuel Eto’o, Emmanuel Adebayor, El Hadji Diouf and George Weah were notable past winners of the award.