The nominees for this year’s BBC African Footballer of the year award were announced this week.

Familiar names such as Yaya Toure, Didier Drogba and Demba Ba were joined by Montpellier’s breakthrough Moroccan Younes Belhanda and Zambia’s inspirational captain Christopher Katongo.

The BBC Award is held in high regard and most African players consider it an honour to be nominated for an award previously won by the likes of Jay-Jay Okocha, Didier Drogba and Asamoah Gyan.

Last year’s winner was Andre ‘Dede’ Ayew of Marseille after a great campaign for club and country but now he is making the headlines for entirely different reasons. It seems the Ghanaian is deemed surplus to requirements at the Stade Velodrome.

The club are desperately trying to shed some of their wage bill; in a similar vein to rivals Olympique Lyonnais and while originally it was though Loic Remy was the player they intended on moving on Ayew is now widely considered to be on his way out of the door.

The son of legendary Ghana talisman Abedi Pele is in no way out of the picture; he recently bagged a goal against Nice in a 2-2 home draw and is still a regular in the squad.

Simply put Marseille need to trim the budget and the removal of Ayew for a reasonable sum of money makes sense for all parties concerned.

Earlier in the season the winger seemed to dismiss speculation of an exit stating his desire to remain at l’OM however his tact seems to have changed recently:

“We are very interested in playing abroad one day in our career. There is no official bid from West Ham and if there is a possibility of one arriving, we will speak to our advisors. West Ham are an excellent team.”

Who is the ‘we’ he speaks of? Well his little brother Jordan of course who is also being linked with a move away.

Tipped by many to be even better than his older brother Jordan has also been linked with a move away in January and there are signs that the two come as a package only.

With both players seemingly up for grabs who has been linked with their signings?

Well clearly West Ham have been strongly linked in the past few days but teams such as Reading and Norwich have previously been talked of as interested.

In Andre’s case; while he is obviously talented some people have called into question his temperament recently.

After being substituted for the Black Stars he threw a tantrum at the decision and former Birmingham City striker Christophe Dugarry said of his recent Marseille performances:

‘’I expect to see more but the players are not good enough. For me this team lacks talent. Andre Ayew is not showing hunger- where is he?…He is a good player in Ligue 1 but a great player should be able to pull up young [players] to incorporate them into the team.’’

Source: Mathew Nash

Related Images