India’s Loitongbam Ashalata Devi has been nominated for the Asian Football Confederation’s (AFC) Player of the Year in the women’s category. In the list of nominees for the AFC Annual awards that was released on Friday, it was revealed that Ashalata will be competing for the honour along with China’s Li Ying and Japan’s Saki Kumagai.
The nomination comes at the end of what has been a great year for Ashalata in which she led the Indian team to the second round of the 2020 Olympic qualifiers and to the 2019 SAFF Championship title. She was an integral part of the Sethu FC side that won the Indian Women’s League.
Ashalata was earlier voted as the All India Football Federation’s (AIFF) Women’s Player of the Year for the 2018/19 season.
Li was the top scorer of the 2018 Women’s Asian Cup and her goals led China to the Round of 16 of the FIFA Women’s World Cup earlier in the year. Japan captain Kumagai helped her team to the Round of 16 of the World Cup and was an integral part of the Lyon side that won their fourth consecutive UEFA Women’s Champions League. She was nominated for the BBC World Women’s Football of the Year award.
Meanwhile the AIFF was also included in the list of nominees. They are nominated in the AFC President Recognition Awards for Grassroots Football (Developing) category along with the Hong Kong Football Association and the Football Association of Singapore.