Preparations for the 2006 Glo-CAF Awards reached fever pitch over the weekend as more nominees and celebrity African stars confirmed their attendance. At the last count, all three top nominees for the African Footballer of the Year Award are said to have responded positively and would be arriving Accra, the Ghanaian capital from Tuesday.Chelsea’s Club Secretary, David Barnard last Friday wrote to confirm the club’s release of Michael Essien and Didier Drogba to attend the awards ceremony while Mike Itemuagbor, consultant to Globacom Limited is still arranging the travel detail of Barcelona’s Samuel Eto’O. “Eto’O is keen on the trip because he thinks it will be fine to receive the awards for the fourth time in person.

“But he still has to smoothen out some issues with his club and hopefully make it for the private plane that will leave on Wednesday”, Itemuagbor said in a telephone chat.Other nominees who confirmed their attendance over the weekend are CAF Champions League hot-shot, Mohamed Abou Trika of Al Ahly who is in the running for Inter-Club Player of the Year. Kareem Nafti from Sfax FC Tunisia, another contender for the Inter-Club Player award is arriving with his French-born manager, Roland Scheubel. Others are Women Footballer of the Year contenders, Modise Portia of South Africa and Cynthia Uwuak of Nigeria as well as Coach of the Year contender and Head coach of the Egypt National team, Hassan Shehata.

Confirmations have also come from the vice president of Assec Mimossas, Francois Ouegin, Idriss Moez of Etoile d Sahel and Zaher Zamir of Al Ahly, representatives of the three Club of the Year nominees.For the former international stars, the latest confirmations came from Thomas Nkono, the former Camerounian international who will be flying in from his base in Spain. Nkono described his invitation as “a worthy honour coming at the right time because I was already thinking that CAF has forgotten some of us”. Earlier, Roger Milla, Kalusha Bwalya, Laurent Pokou and Kalusha Bwalya confirmed they would be attending the prestigious event.

Harry Iwuala of Globacom said the event promises to be the best ever. “The number of nominees attending this event is unprecedented in the history of the awards and the resources we have invested to make this possible is consistent with our promise to deliver a world class show that will take African football to new heights,” Iwuala explained.