Yaya Toure has won the BBC African Player of the Year. Toure received the award at his club's ground - Manchester City's Etihad Stadium.  It was the fifth time Toure was nominated for the award but the first time he has won.  Congratulations Yaya Toure!

Which players did he beat to the award?

There were four other players nomimated for the award. They were:

1. John Mikel Obi (Chelsea and Nigeria)
2. Victor Moses (Liverpool and Nigeria)
3. Jonathan Pitroipa (Stade Rennais and Burkina Faso)
4. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Borussia Dortmund and Gabon)

What do we know about Yaya Toure?

Yaya Toure was born in Bouaké in the Ivory Coast in May 1983. When he was 13 years old he moved to Abidjan (the biggest city in Ivory Coast) to play for ASES Mimosas and their famous academy. This academy has produced many famous Ivorian players including:

• Yaya's brother Koulo Toure (Liverpool)
• Gervinho (Roma and ex-Arsenal)
• Didier Zokora (Trabzonspor and ex-Tottenham)
• Emmanuel Eboue (Galatasaray and ex-Arsenal)
• Solomon Kalou (Lille and ex-Chelsea)

Where has Yaya Toure played?

Like many of his Ivorian colleagues, Toure left the Ivory Coast to play in Europe. So far in his career Toure has played for six different clubs, in six different countries. They are:

1. Beveren (Belgium)
2. Metalurh Donetsk (Ukraine)
3. Olimpiacos (Greece)
4. AS Monaco (France)
5. FC Barcelona (Spain)
6. Manchester City (England)

During his travels, Toure has won league titles in four different countries, (Ivory Coast, Greece, Spain and England). He also won the Champions League with Barcelona in 2009 where he played as a centre back in the 2-0 victory against Manchester United. Because the competition at Barcelona was very strong he moved to Manchester City in the summer of 2010.

Has he had success playing for the Ivory Coast?

Toure has played over 80 times for Ivory Coast and has scored 16 international goals. He made his debut against Egypt, in June 2004. Toure has played for 'The Elephants' in five Africa Cup of Nations tournaments and finished as runners-up in 2006 and 2012. Toure was named in the team of the tournament in 2008 and 2012.

Toure played all three games in the 2006 World Cup, in Germany, for Ivory Coast, which was their first ever World Cup. Toure also played in all three games that Ivory Coast played in the World Cup in 2010, in South Africa. Ivory Coast had to play in diffcult groups on both occasions (Argentina and Netherlands 2006 and Brazil and Portugal 2010). Ivory Coast and Toure were hoping for more luck when the draw is made for World Cup 2014 in Brazil. However, a defeat against Greece meant the Ivory Coast didn't progress from the group stages.

What do we know about Toure outside of football?

Yaya Toure is a practising Muslim. He once said no to a bottle of champagne that was presented to him for a man of the match performance against Newcastle. 

Toure has recently become a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Environment Programme. His job includes speaking about the importance of protecting elephants in all of Africa and to stop poaching of the animals. Toure has said, "Ivory Coast's national team is named The Elephants after these magnificent amimals, yet in my country, there are less than 800 elephants left."

Toure has also spoken a number of times about stopping racism in football. Toure has said that we need to, "show a red card to racism".

On Twitter Toure said, "Thank you for your votes, I feel so blessed!". You can follow Yaya Toure on Twitter. He posts using the name @Toure_Yaya42.

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