Ballon d’Or ranking: From Okocha to Osimhen – How every Nigerian nominee finished

Since the Ballon d’Or opened its doors to non-European players in 1995, only a handful of Nigerians have ever made the shortlist.

Eight male players have earned a nomination across seven separate editions of the award — and their final rankings tell the story of Nigerian football’s rise, stall, and recent return to the game’s biggest stage.

In this article, Afrik-Foot writes on every Nigerian who has been nominated for the Ballon d’Or and how every one of them finished.

Ballon d’Or: How Every Nigerian Finished

1. Daniel Amokachi — 1995 Ballon d’Or

Amokachi arrived at Everton in 1994 with the reputation he’d built at the World Cup still fresh, and he repaid Goodison Park in style the following spring. In their FA Cup semi-final against Tottenham that season, Amokachi scored twice in a 4-1 win. He added a cameo off the bench in the final itself as Everton beat Manchester United 1-0 to lift the trophy, their first major silverware in eight years.

That FA Cup-winning season was enough to put Amokachi on France Football’s radar alongside the sport’s biggest names, including that year’s eventual winner, George Weah.

However, Amokachi was one of 16 nominees who didn’t register a single vote from the panel of European journalists.

2. Jay-Jay Okocha — 1995 Ballon d’Or

Okocha’s rise at Eintracht Frankfurt had already made him a Bundesliga cult figure by 1995, his close control and audacious tricks drawing comparisons to Diego Maradona.

In the 1994-95 season he started finding a regular scoring touch too, contributing seven goals in 27 league appearances as Frankfurt pushed for European qualification, and his growing reputation for the spectacular — including goals that German television would later vote among the greatest in Bundesliga history — had made him one of the most talked-about young talents on the continent.

That buzz was enough to land him among France Football’s nominees for the 1995 award, alongside the likes of George Weah, Jürgen Klinsmann and the rest of Europe’s elite. The voters, however, never got around to him, as he finished among the unranked nominees who received no votes at all.

3. Finidi George — 1995 Ballon d’Or

No Nigerian had a season in 1995 to match Finidi George’s. As the Super Eagles’ right winger in Louis van Gaal’s all-conquering Ajax side, he won the Eredivisie, the Dutch Super Cup and, in May, the UEFA Champions League after Ajax beat AC Milan 1-0 in the final in Vienna.

It capped a run of five trophies with the Amsterdam club inside a single year, with Finidi a regular starter throughout the Champions League campaign.

Finidi picked up six points in the Ballon d’Or voting, landing him in a tie for 21st place alongside AC Milan’s Franco Baresi — comfortably the best showing of Nigeria’s three nominees in that landmark 1995 edition.

4. Nwankwo Kanu — 1996 Ballon d’Or

Kanu spent 1996 confirming he was one of the most gifted young forwards in Europe. He’d already come off the bench in Ajax’s 1995 Champions League final win, and the following season he started as Ajax reached the final again, only to lose on penalties to Juventus.

That summer, still only 19, he captained a Nigeria squad to Olympic gold in Atlanta, scoring twice in a stunning extra-time semi-final comeback against Brazil before Nigeria beat Argentina in the final — a result still regarded as one of African football’s greatest wins.

The voters rewarded him with 14 points and 11th place in the final Ballon d’Or standings — at the time, the best finish by any Nigerian in the award’s history, and above that year’s reigning winner, George Weah, in the same ranking.

Kanu moved to Inter Milan that same year, only for the switch to be overshadowed by the heart condition that was diagnosed shortly after his arrival in Italy.

5. Jay-Jay Okocha — 1996 Ballon d’Or

Okocha earned a second consecutive Ballon d’Or nomination in 1996, having continued to build his reputation as one of the most entertaining attacking midfielders in European football.

After his spell at Eintracht Frankfurt, the Nigerian joined Fenerbahçe, where his dribbling, close control and ability to produce moments of individual brilliance made him a major attraction in Turkish football.

That year also brought international success for him. Okocha was part of the Nigeria squad that won Olympic gold at the Atlanta Games, helping the Dream Team complete a remarkable run to the title.

However, his second Ballon d’Or nomination did not translate into votes. Okocha was among 18 players who received no points in the 1996 voting, finishing outside the ranked positions.

6. Victor Ikpeba — 1997 Ballon d’Or

Ikpeba’s best football came after that same 1996 Olympic triumph. Back at Monaco, he scored 13 league goals to help the principality club win the Ligue 1 title under Jean Tigana, and finished as the second-highest scorer in that season’s UEFA Cup as Monaco reached the semi-finals. It earned him the African Footballer of the Year award for 1997.

However, his Ballon d’Or return was far lower, as he only got two points, which left him tied for 32nd in the final standings, a long way down from the continental recognition he’d just picked up.

7. Sunday Oliseh — 1998 Ballon d’Or

Oliseh’s 1998 had two unforgettable highlights. In the Eredivisie, he was a key midfield presence as Morten Olsen’s Ajax won the league and cup double, beating PSV in the KNVB Cup final. And at the World Cup in France that summer, he scored one of the tournament’s most replayed goals — a thunderous long-range strike against Spain that sealed a 3-2 group-stage win and sent Nigeria into the knockout rounds.

Those performances were enough to see him named Africa’s third-best player of the year by CAF and to earn a Ballon d’Or nomination — but, like so many of his Super Eagles teammates in that era, Oliseh went through the vote without picking up a single point, finishing among the unranked names at the bottom of the shortlist.

8. Nwankwo Kanu — 1999 Ballon d’Or

Kanu’s career was reborn in 1999. After heart surgery had kept him out of football for the best part of a year, he signed for Arsenal in February and was soon delivering moments that would define his Premier League legacy.

Obviously, there was none bigger than his 15-minute hat-trick at Stamford Bridge that October, when he turned a 2-0 deficit into a stunning 3-2 win over Chelsea with a curling finish still ranked among the best goals in Premier League history. The season also brought him a second African Footballer of the Year award.

France Football’s voters gave him two points, enough for a tie for 23rd place alongside Argentina’s Hernán Crespo. That was the best showing of any Nigerian that year, and the last time a Nigerian would feature on the Ballon d’Or shortlist for almost a quarter of a century.

9. Victor Osimhen — 2023 Ballon d’Or

Twenty-four years after Kanu’s last nomination, Osimhen ended Nigeria’s wait in spectacular fashion. He fired Napoli to their first Scudetto in 33 years, scoring 26 Serie A goals to win the Golden Boot and become the first African player to top Italy’s scoring charts, while also leading Napoli to the Champions League quarter-finals.

His club form carried over to the international stage too, where he scored ten goals in Nigeria’s 2023 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying campaign.

The reward was an 8th-place finish with 24 points — the highest Ballon d’Or placing by any Nigerian in history. Osimhen finished above the likes of Mohamed Salah and Robert Lewandowski, and his season was later crowned with the CAF African Footballer of the Year title.

10. Ademola Lookman — 2024 Ballon d’Or

Lookman’s 2024 was built around one of the most dramatic individual performances of the football calendar. He scored a hat-trick in the Europa League final that sank an unbeaten Bayer Leverkusen side 3-0 and gave Atalanta their first major trophy since 1963.

He also helped Nigeria reach the final of that year’s Africa Cup of Nations, scoring in victories over Cameroon and Angola along the way before the Super Eagles lost out to hosts Ivory Coast.

It was enough to make him the only Nigerian nominee on the 2024 shortlist, and he finished 14th in the final rankings — the third-highest Ballon d’Or finish by any Nigerian player, behind Osimhen’s in 2023 and Kanu’s in 1996. Lookman capped the year by being named CAF African Footballer of the Year.