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Mohamed Salah will compete with his Liverpool teammate Sadio Mane from Senegal and Gabonese striker Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang.

The biggest exclusion from the list is last year’s winner of the award Ryad Mahrez.

Confederation of African Football (CAF) first released a 30-man shortlist which had two Ghanaians, Christian Atsu and Thomas Partey, but they missed out on the final 11-man short.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah have nominated out of the remaining 11 players as they go head to head for the award.

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Salah is tipped to emerge as the first Egyptian to win the award after helping the North Africans qualify for their first World Cup since 1990 and coupled with splendid club form with Roma,before continuing at Liverpool.

He is currently the leading top scorer in Premier league and was voted the BBC African Footballer of the Year last week.

The final phase of this shortlist was determined by votes from the Head Coaches/Technical Directors of the 54 National Associations affiliated to CAF plus Associate Members, Reunion Island and Zanzibar, together with the other half of the 20-member Panel of Experts (10 persons) was be counted towards the determination of the eventual winners.

The winner of the award will be named at the AITEO CAF awards 2017 ceremony be held in Accra on 4th January 2018.