WE laughed ourselves senseless when someone tried to embarrass the Confederation of African Football (Caf) by announcing a fictitious list of nominees for the African Footballer of the Year award the other day.

This naughty hacker released a list of nominees that included SA’s Steven Pienaar, Didier Drogba, Asamoah Gyan, Michael Essien, Samuel Eto’o and Kevin-Prince Boateng, among others.

The bloody thing really looked authentic and many South African media houses excitedly celebrated the fact that  Pienaar had finally been  acknowledgement as one of the continent’s best.

It later turned out that this list did not come from Caf and the embarrassed old dinosaur hastily sent out a statement distancing itself from the whole debacle.

We imagined clueless Caf president Issa Hayatou and his mob of yes-men furiously wagging their fingers after someone made a complete mockery of what is effectively their flagship award.

But as far as I am concerned, Caf managed to reduce this award into a complete mockery all on their own a long time ago and anyone who actually still takes this thing seriously should have his cranium read.

That sorry mob has managed to reduce this award  to such a farce over the years that the winner would be nuts to believe he’s Africa’s best player.

Remember how  Drogba stunned the world when he said he did not win the 2007 African Footballer of the Year award because he refused to leave his Cote d’Ivoire squad smack in the middle of the 2008 African Nations Cup to make an eight-hour trip from Ghana to Togo.

Apparently some high-ranking Caf dunderhead phoned Drogba on the eve of the ceremony and told him that he had won the award.

But the condition was that the Cote d’Ivoire captain be present at the ceremony in Togo to give the whole charade some sort of credibility.

Drogba rightfully pointed out that as his team’s captain, he could not just dump his team-mates while Cote d’Ivoire was preparing for the African Nations Cup quarterfinal match against Guinea, which was a mere 48 hours after the awards shindig. But the Caf caller would hear none of it and told Drogba that if he didn’t show up to pick up the bloody award in person, then Mali’s Frederic Kanoute would suddenly win this thing! Imagine that!

Drogba elected to put his country’s interests ahead of his own and refused to attend the ceremony. And, lo and behold, we woke up to the news that Kanoute had been voted as the 2007 African Footballer of the Year — much against expectations, it has to be added. Crazy, isn’t it?

The most laughable part of all this is that Caf had us believe that voting for the award was conducted by national coaches from 53 African countries. But as it turned out, voting was actually conducted by a roomful of conniving Caf administrators.

Drogba’s claims aside, it has become blatantly clear that Hayatou and his cronies are running an operation that is about as organised as a preschool marbles contest.

What other organisation in the world decides to abandon its flagship tournament — the 2008 African Nations Cup — halfway into the event and then proceeds to host a counter-attraction in another country?

Apparently, these Caf gungus wanted to present the Togo president with some kind of award and they decided that it would be a good idea to host the whole ceremony in his country.

This is why Caf will not get any sympathy from anyone and perhaps we should all send this hacker a bunch of flowers for showing them up for the mindless incompetents they really are.