Asia's Footballer of the Year

The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has been honoring Asia's Footballer of the Year every year since 1994 . While the German and European Footballer of the Year are chosen by juries of journalists, in Asia the corresponding title is officially awarded by the Asian Football Association. As part of a gala, 20 further honors will be given, including the Asian Trainer of the Year category .

Since 2012, the Asian Footballer of the Year award has only been given to players who play for an Asian club. Asia's International Footballer of the Year award was created for players from other teams . In the same year, a prize for the best non-Asian player in the AFC was launched with the award of Foreign Footballer of the Year .

The AFC sees the elections as proof of the high level on which Asian football is now moving. In a global comparison, Asian teams and players are still far behind the competition from Europe , South America and Africa , but more and more Asian footballers are approaching the world's best. The best teams among the Asian national teams therefore make up the most footballers of the year.

The honors are given at a gala, the Annual Awards Ceremony , which traditionally takes place in Kuala Lumpur .

Before 1994, the election was only carried out unofficially. From 1988 to 1991 the IFFHS selected a player, in 1992 no player was named, in 1993 the first, albeit unofficial, appointment by the AFC took place.

In the meantime - until 2000 - the title of Asia's Footballer of the Year was given as the Asian Football Confederation's Sanyo Player of the Year Award .

Asia's Footballer of the Year

year	player	Club (s)
1994	Said al-Uwairan	Al-Shabab
1995	Masami Ihara	Yokohama Marinos
1996	Chodadad Azizi	Pirouzi Tehran
1997	Hidetoshi Nakata	Bellmare Hiratsuka
1998	Hidetoshi Nakata	AC Perugia
1999	Ali Daei	Hertha BSC
2000	Nawaf at-Tamyat	Al-Hilal
2001	Fan Zhiyi	Dundee United
2002	Shinji Ono	Feyenoord Rotterdam
2003	Mehdi Mahdavikia	Hamburger SV
2004	Ali Karimi	Al-Ahli Dubai
2005	Hamad al-Muntashari	Ittihad FC
2006	Khalfan Ibrahim	Al-Sadd Sports Club
2007	Yassir al-Qahtani	Al-Hilal
2008	Server Jeparov	Bunyodkor Tashkent
2009	Yasuhito Endo	Gamba Osaka
2010	Saša Ognenovski	Seongnam FC
2011	Server Jeparov	Al-Shabab
2012	Lee Keun-ho	Gamba Osaka
2013	Zheng Zhi	Guangzhou Evergrande
2014	Nasser Al-Shamrani	Al-Hilal
2015	Ahmed Khalil	Al-Ahli Dubai
2016	Omar Abdulrahman	Al Ain Club
2017	Omar Khribin	Al-Hilal
2018	Abdelkarim Hassan	Al-Sadd SC
2019	Akram Afif	Al-Sadd SC

* The club for which the player was playing at the time of the election is named.

Leaderboards

According to players rank player title 1  Hidetoshi Nakata 2  Server Jeparov 2

By country rank country title 1  Japan 5  Saudi Arabia 5 3  Iran 4th 4th  Qatar 3 5  China 2  Uzbekistan 2  United Arab Emirates 2 8th  Australia 1  South Korea 1  Syria 1

Asia's international footballer of the year

year	player	Club*
2012	Shinji Kagawa	Manchester United
2013	Yūto Nagatomo	Inter Milan
2014	Mile Jedinak	Crystal Palace
2015	Heung-Min Son	Tottenham Hotspur
2016	Shinji Okazaki	Leicester City
2017	Heung-Min Son	Tottenham Hotspur
2018	Makoto Hasebe	Eintracht Frankfurt
2019	Heung-Min Son	Tottenham Hotspur

* The club for which the player was playing at the time of the election is named.

Foreign footballer of the year

year	player	Club*
2012	Rogerinho	Kuwait SC
2013	Muriqui	Guangzhou Evergrande
2014	Asamoah Gyan	al Ain Club
2015	Ricardo Goulart	Guangzhou Evergrande

* The club for which the player was playing at the time of the election is named.

Asia's Footballer of the Century (1998)

Outfield player rank Surname Points 1 Cha Bum-kun 112 2 Kim Joo-sung 93 3 Majid Mohammed Abdullah 87 4th Kazuyoshi Miura 71 5 Kunishige Kamamoto 70 6th Said al-Uwairan 68 7th Ali Daei 64 8th Chodadad Azizi 59 9 Ahmed Radhi 48 10 Karim Bagheri 47

goalkeeper rank Surname Points 1 Mohammad ad-Daʿayyaʿ 54 2 Wet Hejazi 18th 3 Choi In-Young 15th 4th Hui-Kang Zhang 14th 5 Yubin Fu 8th Hamoud Sultan 8th Peter Thangaraj 8th Khaled Al Fadhli 8th Mohammed Wafah Saami 8th 10 Chow Chee Keong 6th

Web links

• AFC Annual Awards - AFC. In: the-afc.com. December 17, 2018, accessed February 3, 2019 .