Super Eagles legend Austin Jay-Jay Okocha has opened up on how CAF denied him of the opportunity of winning the African Footballer of the Year Award in his career.

So good they named him twice, Okocha was one of the most talented African footballers ever, but never got his hands on the coveted individual award.

Speaking to Omasports, the former Bolton Wanderers attacker has admitted it was unfair for him not to have won the award, but has moved on from it.

“I thought I did enough to have won it (the CAF Player of the Year), but at the end of the day, I have to take it on the chin and say maybe that’s life,” he said.

“You can’t have it all, maybe it wasn’t meant to be. But I believe I deserved in at least one occasion to have won it. Because if you look at that list and look at some of the people that won it during my time, I agree that it was unfair.”

Okocha’s closest attempt to win it was finishing second in the 1998 rankings, behind former Moroccan international midfielder Mustapha Hadji.

JJ played the first half of the year with Turkish club Fenerbahce before moving to Paris Saint-Germain for £14 million. He won the French Super Cup for PSG.

He starred for Nigeria at the 1998 FIFA World Cup held in France, and despite Nigeria going out of the competition in the round of 16, he was named in the team of the tournament, as noted by Goal.

The Super Eagles are at risk of missing out on the 2026 World Cup. Okocha claims he is still hopeful and pointed out the main problem the team is currently facing.

“In my opinion they play well, but they are not ruthless enough, they are not converting their chances, which I would say might be our biggest problem, because if we convert half of the chances we create, I have no doubt that we would have won more matches than we have so far,” he said.

“I'm still hopeful because of our mentality that ‘when the going gets tough, the tough gets going’ so I'm not in doubt that the players were committed and they know that they need to go to the World Cup and that the whole nation will be disappointed if we don't qualify especially with the squad we have."

Legit.ng reported that Okocha sent a message to Super Eagles stars Victor Osimhen and Ademola Lookman as the team faces a possible absence from the World Cup.

Okocha, who played at three World Cups, shared his experience after missing out of the 2006 edition, what could have been his fourth, admitting that it still hurt him today.

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Source: Legit.ng