Crested Cranes Duo Ikwaput, Najjemba Shortlisted for CAF Honors

Two Uganda Crested Cranes forwards Fazila Ikwaput and Fauzia Najjemba have made it to the 2022 Confederation of African Football- CAF Women’s awards shortlist. CAF will be awarding outstanding talents both men and women in Africa on July 21st, 2022in Rabat, Morocco.  

Lady Doves’ striker Fazila Ikwaput will be battling 29 other contestants for the CAF Africa Woman player of the year award while Najjemba will be up against eight other players for the CAF Young player of the year award.

To earn herself a spot on the shortlist, Ikwaput completed this year’s FUFA Women super league as a joint top scorer with UCU’S Hasifa Nassuna with 16 goals.  The striker went ahead to help Uganda lift this year’s CECAFA Senior Women’s Championship trophy where she scored six goals overall and claimed the most valuable player's accolade. 

Previously, she had helped her club (Lady Doves) win the 2021 women's super league and also led her team to the inaugural CECAFA Regional qualifiers where Lady Doves finished third.  Ikwaput becomes the first Ugandan woman to compete for the award. She will be battling with the continent’s top players including Nigeria‘s Asiat Oshola, and Uchenna Kanu among others. 

Najjemba is the reigning FUFA Female player of the year after winning the award last year. Najjemba, who is currently playing for BIIK Shymkent in Kazakhstan was not part of the 2022 Senior Women’s champions but she previously helped the U-20 Women’s team to a silver medal in the 2021 u-20 Women’s championship.

During these games, Najjemba was the overall top score with 12 goals. “Grateful for the nomination, it has always been Allah since day one,” the striker briefly posted on her Twitter handle after the nominations.