Qatar’s Akram Afif named AFC Player of the Year

Agencies Seoul (South Korea): Qatari maestro Akram Afif was recognized for a stunning 2023/24 season with the AFC Player of the Year accolade on Tuesday night at the AFC Annual Awards Seoul 2023. The 27-year-old became the first Qatari to win the award twice as he collected the gleaming trophy at the 28th edition of the ceremony, which was staged at the Grand Peace Palace of the Kyung Hee University in Seoul. Afif, who beat Yazan Al Naimat of Jordan and Seol Young-woo of the Korean Republic to the prize, won his first AFC Player of the Year nomination in 2019, Afif made it two for two to become only the third player to win the award more than once after Japan’s Hidetoshi Nakata (1997, 1998) and Uzbekistan’s Server Djeparov (2008, 2011).

He is the third Al Sadd SC player to win, with the other two previous Qatari winners, Khalfan Ibrahim (2006) and Abdelkarim Hassan (2018), also hailing from the same club. The mercurial attacker, who had played a prominent role in Qatar’s firstever AFC Asian Cup success in 2019 by bagging 10 assists, took center stage when they retained Asia’s crown jewel earlier this year. Afif reveled in the occasion on home soil by scoring eight goals and making three assists, memorably becoming the first player in tournament history to score a hat-trick in the Final, to ensure that his side lifted back-toback titles in glorious fashion.