KUALA LUMPUR — Ulsan Hyundai winger Lee Keun-ho was crowned Asian Player of the Year Thursday as officials eased rules on attendance by giving an award to Manchester United's Shinji Kagawa in absentia. Japanese playmaker Shinji Kagawa was awarded the inaugural Asian Football Confederation (AFC) International Player-of-the-Year award. The 23-year-old Manchester United midfielder beat Japan teammate Yuto Nagatomo of Inter Milan and Australia's veteran goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer of Fulham to the award in Kuala Lumpur. Kagawa produced a number of impressive displays earlier in the year as Borussia Dortmund claimed the Bundesliga title before he moved to England where he has had a low-key start and struggled with injury. South Korean winger Lee Keun-ho collected the long-standing AFC Player-of-the-Year award after his strong displays and goal scoring helped Ulsan Hyundai to win the AFC Champions League this month. Lee edged out Iranian midfielder Ali Karimi and Chinese defender Zheng Zhi to become the first Korean to win the award for players competing in Asia. In another new award introduced by the AFC, Brazilian Rogerinho – Rogerio De Assis Silva Coutinho of Kuwait Sports Club – was named the AFC's Foreign Player of the Year. Asian football's governing body, meanwhile, Thursday said it planned to hold leadership elections next year after a long period of uncertainty following the suspension of its president over bribery claims. China's Zhang Jilong, who has been interim president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) since Mohamed Bin Hammam's ban from football activities last year, appeared to indicate he would stand for the post full-time when he promised “a new era of transparency”. “Under my caretaker leadership, I promised a new vision for AFC. I committed myself to a new era of transparency and I am confident that with your support I will be able to deliver this objective,” he said in a statement. However, the AFC added that the presidential vote, at a congress due by the end of April, would only go ahead “subject to the recommendations and advice of the AFC legal committee by mid-January”. Elections would be aimed at sweeping away a turbulent period since Bin Hammam was banned from football for life by FIFA in June 2011 over claims he bribed delegates for votes during his bid to win the world body's presidency. In July this year, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) overturned the ban due to a lack of evidence, but stopped short of exonerating him. The Qatari is now under a temporary ban as the AFC probes alleged financial irregularities. At next year's congress, the AFC will also hold elections for one position on the FIFA executive committee, as well as one female AFC vice president and two female members of the AFC executive committee. The congress was approved unanimously by the AFC's executive committee in Kuala Lumpur Thursday, just ahead of its annual awards show, in what the statement called a “note of solidarity”. — Agencies
