Samuel Kuffour, Samuel Eto'O and El Hadji Diouf are the three finalists in the running for this year's African Footballer of the Year award.

Ghana's Kuffour, who plays with Bayern Munich, is strongly favoured to make history as the first defender to win the best individual prize in the continent.

But the challenge will come from two strikers who played a big role in their national team's qualifications for the Korea /Japan World Cup. Cameroon's Eto'O burst into limelight in 1999 after joining Real Madrid and blossomed in the 2000 African Nations Cup in Ghana/Nigeria - scoring the opening goal in the final against Nigeria. The pacey striker has also won the Nations Cup in 2000, The Olympic gold medal in 2000 but has been struggling to make the first team at Real Mallorca.

Meanwhile, Diouf played for French side Rennes and finally Racing Club of Lens for whom he has scored six goals this season. However the striker missed Senegal's Nations Cup campaign in 2000, but bounced back to set the tone for his county's World Cup qualifying success by scoring two hat-tricks against Namibia and Algeria ending the campaign with eight goals.

Interestingly for the first time in half a decade, no Nigerian player is short listed - an indication of the fading form of most of their key players who are hoping to make a successful outing at the World Cup in the summer. The three emerged from a list of 34 players originally retained after 27 members of the Confederation of African Football's technical and media committee submitted their votes.

According to CAF, each voter submitted the names of five players and the three short-listed earned the highest votes. The winner will be unveiled next year at the Confederation’s Awards night in South Africa. The date has not been fixed, however it is known that the announcement will be made after the African Nations Cup in Mali.