The Confederation of African Football has rescheduled the 2026 CAF Awards ceremony to December 2, moving the event forward by five days from its originally announced date of December 7.
The ceremony will still hold at the Wole Soyinka Centre for Culture and Creative Arts, formerly the National Theatre, in Lagos, marking Nigeria’s return as host of the awards for the first time since 2014 .
While CAF’s public statement did not give a reason for the shift, a CAF official told The Guardian Nigeria that European clubs were reluctant to release their players for the December 7 date, which would have left several nominees absent from the ceremony.
“We had no choice really. You do an event, and the winners are not there, or you change [the date] so they can be there,” the official said .
The ceremony will begin at 7 pm Nigerian time, with voting running until November 20 .
This year’s awards come with a stark reality for Nigerian football: for the first time since 2015, no Super Eagles player made the Men’s Player of the Year shortlist. Victor Osimhen and other Nigerian stars were omitted from the 10-man list, which features Senegal’s Sadio Mané, Morocco’s Achraf Hakimi and Ivory Coast’s Amad Diallo .
The omission follows Nigeria’s failure to qualify for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, losing to DR Congo on penalties in the African play-off final in November 2025 .
Similarly, no Super Falcons player was nominated for the Women’s Player of the Year prize, the first time since the award’s inception in 2001 .
There are still Nigerian nominees in the youth and goalkeeping categories.
Janet Akekoromowei and Flamingos’ Oluwakemi Adegbuyi are up for the Women’s Young Player of the Year award, while Edo Queens’ Christiana Uzoma is in the running for the Women’s Goalkeeper of the Year .
Nigeria is also nominated in the Women’s National Team of the Year category .
This year’s ceremony marks the first time Lagos has hosted the CAF Awards since January 2017, when the event was held in Abuja. On that night, Algeria’s Riyad Mahrez won the Men’s Player of the Year award, while Asisat Oshoala claimed the Women’s prize .
The 2026 edition will honour excellence across 18 categories, with the Men’s and Women’s Player of the Year awards remaining the most anticipated .
