Mohammed Kudus
Midfielder Mohammed Kudus has been voted the 2022 Sports Writers Association of Ghana (SWAG) Personality of the Year.
The Ajax man shrugged off competition from amateur boxer Abraham Mensah and sprinter Joseph Paul Amoah to annex the flagship award.
Kudus scored 20 goals in 2,861 minutes for both club and country in the calendar year.
He won the Dutch Eredivisie title with Ajax Amsterdam in the year under review and made a magnificent impact in the UEFA Champions League.
Amoah, 25, a gold medalist from the 2019 African Games was hoping to earn the accolade for the first time in his illustrious career, however, the 391 registered journalists who voted thought otherwise as they voted in favour of the Ajax Amsterdam icon.
Within the calendar year, Kudus notched four goals in the 2022/23 UEFA Champions League for the 36-time Dutch champions.
The former Right to Dream Academy graduate was on target against Rangers at the Ibrox Stadium, scoring a 26th-minute goal and assisting Steven Berghuis to the opener in a game the Dutch giants won 3-1. The goal completed a back-to-back scoring against the Scottish powerhouse after scoring against them in July.
Kudus’ exploits didn’t stop there as he netted the consolation goal in a 6-1 loss to Napoli in early October. Prior to that, he had hogged the headlines in Europe after netting a classy finish at Anfield against Liverpool in the UEFA flagship competition.
He has become the third Ghanaian player in the last 10 years to win the SWAG Footballer of the Year Award twice.