Okocha: I regret not winning African player award

Augustine ‘Jay Jay’ Okocha, former Super Eagles midfielder and captain, says he regrets not winning the prestigious CAF African Footballer of the Year award.

The 46-year-old was speaking on Thursday during a Q&A session with Toke Makinwa, an on-air personality, during The Mastercard Priceless Experience.

Okocha, who won the BBC African footballer of the year on three occasions, said he deserved to have won the continental award because he did enough to earn the award.

The Nigerian football legend was close to winning the prestigious CAF award in 1998 and 2004 but narrowly lost out to Mustapha Hadji of Morocco and Samuel Eto’o of Cameroon respectively.

“And if I’m to say, I’ll say, I regret not winning the African Footballer of the year,” he said.

“But of course, if you look back, there’s always a time that you say oh maybe you could’ve done a bit better than you did.

“I thought I did enough to have won it because it was not a fluke that I won BBC player of the year three years in a row and not manage to win that CAF award, but I mean maybe it was not meant to be.

“Well, I think I don’t want to sound greedy, but I’ve had an amazing career, I never thought I would make it that big.”

Okocha, who spent nearly thirteen years with the Nigerian national side, won the 1994 African Cup of Nations (AFCON) with the Eagles.

He also featured in five AFCON tournaments for the three-time African champions and was part of the Olympic gold medal-winning side in 1996.

Speaking at the event, Ifeoma Dozie, director of marketing and communications, Sub-Saharan Africa at Mastercard, said: “At Mastercard, through our long-established priceless experiences platform, we have an opportunity to continue connecting consumers with their passions. We are adapting our traditional sponsorships, leveraging our partnerships and creating new, digital ways of bringing once-in-lifetime moments into people’s homes”.