Ademola Lookman hungry for more CAF Footballer of the Year gongs

He was speaking after he was announced as the successor to his fellow countryman Victor Osimhen, beating off competition from the likes of Bafana Bafana captain Ronwen Williams, Morrocco skipper Achraf Hakimi, Simon Adingra (Ivory Coast) and Serhou Guirassy (Guinea).

Lookman, who plays for Atalanta in the Italian Serie A, had a remarkable 2023 AFCON tournament, taking home a silver medal with the Super Eagles.

"But you know the hard work never stops so I wanna be back here. Hopefully, they host again in Marrakech it's beautiful here but you know I wanna be at the next awards and the next ones after that, that's about hard work," Lookman said.

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Lookman was born in England to Nigerian parents and played for the England U19, U20, and U21 teams.

He turned down the Super Eagles call-ups three times from 2017 before finally agreeing to play for the land of his ancestors in 2022.

Coming to these awards, Lookman was the favourite to take the gong following an impressive 2023/2024 season.

He played a big role in Atalanta winning its first European trophy, scoring a hat-trick in the final against Bayer Leverkusen to win the Europa League.

He becomes the seventh Nigerian to win this award and is honoured to be counted among the legends who have won this coveted trophy.

"To me, it's an incredible achievement, an incredible moment especially to be able to join a list of many great players who have achieved a lot in the games, legends. So, for me, it means a lot, there's a lot of special moments that have happened this year, I can speak about a lot of good things but maybe probably the bad moments,” he added.

“The moments where you don't really wanna do gym but you end up doing that session and then the feeling after doing that session gives you a lot more strength so yeah. I'll probably say the difficult moments that's given me the extra strength."

The 27-year-old became only the sixth player to score a hat-trick in a European club final and the first since 1975.

He also scored three goals for the Super Eagles at the AFCON, helping them to a silver medal, as they lost 2-1 to the Elephants of Ivory Coast.