Former Black Stars defender Samuel Osei Kuffour believes that Ghana is lacking quality players who can compete for the African best player award.

On Monday, the Confederations of Africa Football (CAF) announced Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah as the three players who will battle it out for the 2017 African player of the year award.

Many aficionados of Ghana football have voiced their desolation on the recent failure of Ghanaian players to earn their place in the echelon of African football.

And Osei Kuffour, who was one of the most revered players on the continent during his hay days was asked if any current Ghanaian player can be compared to the players on the final three-man shortlist.

"I think at the moment the comparison from our players and those players are really huge, let’s be honest to ourselves," Kuffour bemoaned to reporters.

"I was thinking that maybe we could have Andre Ayew who I think has more potential but now he is not having the best season in his club, so it is difficult to compare now."

"Who do you compare now, Atsu? I don't think so. Let me be honest with you, he takes risk when he plays for Ghana but not when he's out there, so it's one of those things, you need to take a risk to be the best and if you don't want to be the best then I don't know what you want."

Mohammed Salah is the odds-on favourite to win the award for Africa’s Best Player, after a fantastic year in which he helped qualify Egypt for the World Cup, led them to the AFCON final which they lost to Cameroon, and has already scored 20 goals for Liverpool since joining them in August 2017.

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