Nairobi — This region normally has little choice but just watch when Africa selects its best football player every year.

Al Ahli's Mohamed Aboutrika celebrates after scoring against Auckland in the Fifa Club World Cup soccer tournament in Toyota yesterday. Aboutrika is among the frontrunners for the 2006 Africa Footballer of the Year award.

Kalusha Bwalya, a Zambian, was crowned the continent's top footballer in 1988, surely making the East Africans feel the prize is not impossible to achieve.

But since it's inception in 1970, the award has eluded East Central and Southern African players save for Bwalya in that one-off.

The way it works is that a player has to be consistently good in contributing to the success of his club and country. The higher the stage on which his teams register success the better his chances are of being crowned.

Kenya clubs' highest accolade continues to be the somewhat relatively mean feat of Gor Mahia beating Tunisia's Esperance in the final to capture the now-defunct Africa Cup Winners Cup in 1987.

For his efforts of being the main man in his club's historic run, striker Peter Dawo, the tournament's top scorer, was suddenly on the radar of those scouring the continent for top talent. He was featured in the same circles as other great players in Africa.

No wonder Egyptian Champions Club winners, Arab Contractors, came calling with a contract fo Dawo to play in Cairo.

Dawo did not, however, prosper. The 1990 Nations Cup finals in Algeria ought to have been the venue for him to showcase what he had built on the Cup Winners Cup triumph and the move to Arab Contractors.

He, however, did not impress at all with his performance for the Harambee Stars squad under Mohamed Kheri. They lost to Zambia and Cameroon and drew with Senegal in Annaba.

The roll of the greatest African players since Salif Keita of Mali first won the "Golden Ball" in 1970 is a great replay of the wonderful action bequeathed to Africa by outstanding performers.

This year Samuel Eto'o of Cameroon is on course to win a record fourth time in a row. Last season he was the top goal scorer in the exciting Spanish "La Liga" and was the most instrumental player as his club, FC Barcelona, won the European clubs' Champions League.

He was not in the World Cup finals in Germany because, at the last hurdle, Cameroon failed to qualify.

But in January's African Nations Cup finals in Egypt he led his compatriots to the semi-finals where, ironically, his missed penalty eliminated the so-called Indomitable Lions.

An injury in September halted Eto'o's forage into the new" La Liga" season after he had opened with the same fervour he had concluded the previous one.

Barring this misfortune Eto'o would have been a shoo-in for the "Golden Ball" yet again this year for a record setting fourth time, stretching ahead of the other two triple title winners George Weah (1989, 1994 and 1995) and Abedi Pele Ayew (1991, 1992 and 1993).

The powerful shooting of the prodigious Cote d'Ivoire man, Didier Drogba, has produced so many great match winning goals for England's Chelsea that it would be considered a serious threat to Eto'o's quest for a fourth award.

But Drogba could not hoist Chelsea to the top of Europe last season and that may, in the end, count against him.

However, taking the Ivorians to the Nations Cup final - where they lost to Egypt - and playing a key role in the Ivorians' good showing at the World Cup makes a head-to-head contest with Eto'o too close to call.

Keita, the legendary Mali captain may have won his first Africa Player-of-the-Year title while already a professional at St Etienne, France, but after him for the next dozen years the top talent in the African game was all home-based.

Clubs such as Asante Kotoko, Hafia Conakry, TP (Englebert) Mazembe, Canon Yaounde and Esperance produced the best players for club and country in Africa and managed to hold on to their stars, not losing them to professional clubs in Europe.

Cameroon goalkeeper Thomas Nkono won the African award in 1979 while at Canon Yaounde, the team which that year punished Gor Mahia 2-0 in Nairobi and 6-0 in Cameroon during their Champions League tie.

Nkono became only the second winner of the African award from outside Africa since Keita when he clinched the 1982 award while playing for Espanyol of Barcelona, Spain.

Since then, foreign teams have snapped up the best African footballers as soon as they show any semblance of talent while playing at home.

No wonder the "Golden Ball" has virtually been the preserve of players employed by foreign clubs.

Mohammed Aboutrika of Egypt is an exception. The brilliant midfielder was in his country's Nations Cup winning side this year and has just guided Cairo giants, Al Ahly, to their fifth Champions League title.

Aboutrika is the only player based in the continent with a genuine chance of challenging the foreign legion for the Footballer-of-the-Year title.

Apart from Eto'o and Drogba, the Al Ahly player will be hoping to edge out Michael Essien (Chelsea and Ghana), Ahmed Hassan (Anderlecht and Egypt), Pascal Feindouno (St Etienne and Guinea), Arouna Kone (PSV Eindhoven and Cote d'Ivoire), John Mensah (Stade Rennes and Ghana) and Essam al Hadari (Al Ahly and Egypt).

Thanks to the club Champions League competition and the Nations Cup, African spectators have always been able to witness the continent's best players showcase their skills at home.

Mostly the choice of Africa's Footballer-of-the-Year has widely been unanimously accepted.

As a continent, football followers have also supported their candidate for World Footballer-of-the-Year and fancied their chances of winning despite heavy odds for the rest of the world.

Liberia's George Weah memorably did it once and many others have presented a worthy challenge.

Africa have paraded flamboyant goal scorers such as Milla, Drogba, Jean Manga Onguene, Patrick Mboma, solid, dependable defenders such as Theophile Abega, brilliantly creative and passionate midfielders such as Bwalya, Mahmoud Al Khatib, Karim Abdulrazak, Lakhdar Belloumi, Pele Ayew, Rabah Madjer and Nwankwo Kanu and nerveless goalkeeper's such as Nkono.

Indeed the yearly focus on the "Golden Ball" award has always been a decent barometer for the mood in which the continent appreciates its footballers.