Saudi Salem Al-Dosari won the Best Footballer in Asia award during the annual ceremony held by the Continental Federation in Riyadh on Thursday.
The 34-year-old Al Hilal star beat Qatari Akram Afif, the best player on the continent in 2019 and 2023, and Malaysian Arif Ayman Hanbi, to lift the award for the second time after 2022.
Al-Dosari said after his coronation: “This achievement is not the end of the road, but rather the beginning of greater ambitions. On this occasion, I congratulate everyone on the Saudi team’s qualification to the World Cup.”
Arab players have continued to dominate this award since 2014, knowing that it is only awarded to professional Asian players within the continent.
At the King Fahd Cultural Center in Saudi Arabia, which is hosting the event for the first time, Al-Dosari became the fourth player to win the award twice, following a season that was the best in his career. He also topped the list of top scorers in the AFC Champions League for the elite (10), leading Al-Hilal to the semi-finals.
He joined Afif (2019, 2023), Japanese Hidetoshi Nakata (1997, 1998) and Uzbek Server Dzhiparov (2008, 2011), who were twice crowned winners of the award.
On the local level, Al-Dosari scored 15 goals and assisted 15 others, which is a joint record in the history of the league for a single season, raising his total tally to 59 assists as the player who created the most goals in the history of the competition.
He also scored a goal in the victory over Pachuca of Mexico 2-0 in the group stage of the Club World Cup, becoming the historical Asian top scorer in the tournament with 5 goals, on Al Hilal’s path to the quarter-finals.
Last week, Al-Dosari entered the 100 club in international matches, and led the “Greens” to the World Cup finals for the third time in a row and the seventh in its history.
