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Tony Yeboah

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Tony Yeboah
Personal information
Full name Anthony Yeboah[1]
Date of birth (1966-06-06) 6 June 1966 (age 58)[1]
Place of birth Kumasi, Ghana
Height 1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)
Position(s) Striker
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1981–1983 Asante Kotoko
1983–1985 Cornerstones Kumasi
1986–1987 Okwawu United 35 (35)
1988–1990 1. FC Saarbrücken 65 (26)
1990–1995 Eintracht Frankfurt 123 (68)
1995–1997 Leeds United 47 (24)
1997–2001 Hamburger SV 100 (28)
2001–2002 Al-Ittihad 22 (5)
Total 411 (194)
International career
1985–1997 Ghana 59 (29)
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Anthony Yeboah (born 6 June 1966) is a Ghanaian former professional footballer who played as a striker.

He is considered one of the most prominent and prolific goal scorers in Ghanaian and African football history and gained a reputation for scoring spectacular goals which often featured in Goal of the Month or Goal of the Season competitions in the 1990s.[2]

Yeboah is most noted for his time at European clubs 1. FC Saarbrücken, Eintracht Frankfurt, Leeds United and Hamburger SV. He also played for Asante Kotoko, Cornerstones Kumasi, Okwawu United and Al-Ittihad Doha. He was capped 59 times by Ghana, scoring 29 goals. He now runs an international sports agency and a chain of hotels in Ghana. He won the Bundesliga golden boot on two occasions, 1992–93 and 1993–94, playing for Eintracht Frankfurt.[3]

Club career

[edit]

Yeboah was born in Kumasi, Ghana.[1] After spending his youth in Kumasi, Yeboah joined German club 1. FC Saarbrücken in 1988. This move was of some historical significance, because Yeboah became one of the first black players to appear in the Bundesliga. Yeboah had a slow first year, but then scored 17 league goals in his second Saarbrücken year.[4]

Eintracht Frankfurt

[edit]

Yeboah moved to Eintracht Frankfurt in 1990, where he was at first booed by a section of fans and—being the first black player the team had ever signed—subjected to monkey-noises and other racist insults.[5] In the Hesse metropolis, Yeboah quickly established himself and became the first African Bundesliga club captain.[6] He was the top Bundesliga scorer twice with Eintracht, in 1993 and 1994.[7]

In December 1994 Eintracht's new manager Jupp Heynckes ordered extra training for Yeboah, Jay Jay Okocha and Maurizio Gaudino, who subsequently made themselves unavailable for the next fixture and were then suspended indefinitely by the club. Heynckes had also removed the captaincy from Yeboah, whom he considered to be three kilos overweight.[8] Yeboah later attributed a racist motive to Heynckes and was also unhappy at Eintracht blocking his prospective transfer to FC Bayern Munich.[9][10]

Leeds United

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Yeboah joined English club Leeds United from Eintracht Frankfurt in January 1995, initially on loan but with an option to sign permanently for £3.4 million.[11] He scored 12 times in 21 league appearances as Leeds finished fifth in the FA Premier League and qualified for the UEFA Cup. In his second season at Elland Road, he was voted Player of the Year.[12] Yeboah scored a total of 32 goals for Leeds United in 66 appearances, and is still revered as a cult hero for the Yorkshire club due to a series of memorable goals he scored. His volley against Liverpool and his strike versus Wimbledon in the 1995–96 season were among his most notable goals, and he was a regular feature in Goal of the Month in the Premier League.[13] He told Newstalk's Team 33 in 2014 that his favourite goal was the one he scored against Liverpool.[14] The goal against Wimbledon was awarded Goal of the Season in 1995–96.[13] Until Gareth Bale equalled the feat in 2013, Yeboah was the only player ever to win successive BBC Match of the Day Goal of the Month competitions, doing so in September and October 1995.[15]

He also scored three hat-tricks for Leeds; the first against Ipswich Town in the Premier League at Elland Road on 5 April 1995, which made him only the third foreign player to score a league hat-trick for Leeds (Cantona v Tottenham in August 1992 was the first, and Phil Masinga three months earlier in an FA Cup tie).[16] Yeboah's second hat-trick came against Monaco in the 1995–96 UEFA Cup on 12 September 1995, and the third 11 days later in the Premier League match against Wimbledon at Selhurst Park which included the aforementioned Goal of the Season.[17] A video was released named ‘Yeboah – Shoot to Kill’ while he was at Leeds.[18]

Injuries (several picked up while on international duty) restricted his game when he played and kept him out of the Leeds side on several occasions.[13] He also developed a well-documented fondness for Yorkshire pudding.[19] A knee injury curtailed his appearances at the end of 1995–96 and he underwent surgery in August 1996.[20] When George Graham took over as Leeds manager in September 1996 he used Yeboah sparingly, considering him to be unfit.[21] This brought about a rift between player and coach, which culminated in Yeboah throwing his shirt in the direction of the bench after being substituted in a 1–0 defeat by Tottenham Hotspur in March 1997.[22]

Yeboah failed to report back for pre-season training ahead of 1997–98, hoping to force a transfer.[23] He was sold to Hamburger SV in September 1997 for a fee of around £1 million,[24] having played just six times in the 1996–97 season under Graham.[13]

Later career

[edit]

Yeboah remained with his German club Hamburger SV until 2001, scoring 28 goals.[25] In January 2001 he was convicted on tax evasion charges relating to a signing on fee he had received when extending his Eintracht Frankfurt contract in 1993.[26] He was fined 360,000 marks by the court and then fell into another financial dispute with the lawyer who had defended him in the case.[27] After making just five appearances in the 2001–02 Hamburger SV season, he began negotiating a release from the final months of his contract in November 2001.[28] He left in order to join Al Ittihad of the Qatar Stars League in December 2001, where he played under Austrian coach Josef Hickersberger.[29]

International career

[edit]

He was a member of Ghana's national team for over ten years, and represented his country at three Africa Cup of Nations during the 1990s. Yeboah reportedly scored 29 goals in 59 appearances for Ghana, the fourth highest goalscoring total in the nation's history behind Asamoah Gyan, Edward Acquah and Kwasi Owusu.[30][31] RSSSF records credit Yeboah with 15 goals in 56 caps.[32]

Yeboah featured for Ghana in their 1992 African Cup of Nations final defeat, but the occasion was marred by a dispute over the team captaincy. With Abedi Pele suspended, regular vice-captain Yeboah was controversially overlooked for the captaincy in favour of Anthony Baffoe.[33]

Post-playing career

[edit]

On 3 November 2008, he was appointed as the new chairman of the newly promoted Ghana Premier League club Berekum Chelsea.[34]

Personal life

[edit]

Yeboah entered Germany with a passport which stated his year of birth as 1964. He later modified this to 1966, explaining that he had used the pretend 1964 birth year to gain early access to senior football in Ghana when he was only 17 years old.[35][36]

Yeboah along with his cousin former Mainz player Michael Osei runs an international sports agency called Anthony Yeboah Sportpromotion and owns a chain of hotels in Ghana (Accra, Kumasi) called Yegoala.[37][38] He is married and has two children.[39]

His nephews, Kelvin and Obed Yeboah, are also professional footballers.[40][41]

Career statistics

[edit]

Club

[edit]
Appearances and goals by club, season and competition[18][42][4]
Club Season League National cup League cup Continental Other Total
Division Apps Goals Apps Goals Apps Goals Apps Goals Apps Goals Apps Goals
1. FC Saarbrücken 1988–89 2. Bundesliga 28 9 2 0 – – 2[a] 2 32 11
1989–90 2. Bundesliga 37 17 1 2 – – 2[a] 1 40 20
Total 65 26 3 2 0 0 0 0 4 3 72 31
Eintracht Frankfurt 1990–91 Bundesliga 26 8 6 2 – 1 1 – 33 11
1991–92 Bundesliga 34 15 1 0 – 3 2 – 38 17
1992–93 Bundesliga 27 20 6 5 – 4 5 – 37 30
1993–94 Bundesliga 22 18 2 1 – 3 1 – 27 20
1994–95 Bundesliga 14 7 2 1 – 5 3 – 21 11
Total 123 68 17 9 0 0 16 12 0 0 156 89
Leeds United 1994–95 Premier League 18 12 2 1 0 0 – – 20 13
1995–96 Premier League 22 12 6 1 7 3 4 3 – 39 19
1996–97 Premier League 7 0 0 0 0 0 – – 7 0
Total 47 24 8 2 7 3 4 3 0 0 66 32
Hamburger SV 1997–98 Bundesliga 23 3 0 0 – 0 0 – 23 3
1998–99 Bundesliga 34 14 3 2 – – – 37 16
1999–2000 Bundesliga 24 9 1 0 – 6 3 – 31 12
2000–01 Bundesliga 14 2 1 0 1 0 9 2 – 25 4
2001–02 Bundesliga 5 0 0 0 – – – 5 0
Total 100 28 5 2 1 0 15 5 0 0 121 35
Career total 335 146 33 15 8 3 35 20 4 3 415 187
  1. ^ a b Bundesliga promotion playoffs

International

[edit]

African Cup of Nations only.

Scores and results list Ghana's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Yeboah goal.
List of international goals scored by Tony Yeboah
No. Date Venue Opponent Score Result Competition
1 17 January 1992 Stade Aline Sitoe Diatta, Ziguinchor, Senegal  Egypt 1–0 1–0 1992 African Cup of Nations
2 20 January 1992 Stade Leopold Senghor, Dakar, Senegal  Congo 1–0 2–1 1992 African Cup of Nations
3 30 August 1992 Accra Sports Stadium, Accra, Ghana  Burkina Faso 1–0 3–0 1994 African Cup of Nations Qualifier
4 2–0
5 25 July 1993 Samuel Kanyon Doe Sports Complex, Monrovia, Liberia  Liberia 2–0 2–0 1994 African Cup of Nations Qualifier
6 23 April 1995 Accra Sports Stadium, Accra, Ghana  Niger 1–0 1–0 1996 African Cup of Nations Qualifier
7 14 January 1996 EPRU Stadium, Port Elizabeth, South Africa  Ivory Coast 1–0 2–0 1996 African Cup of Nations
8 28 January 1996 EPRU Stadium, Port Elizabeth, South Africa  Zaire 1–0 1–0 1996 African Cup of Nations

Honours

[edit]

[4][43]

Asante Kotoko

Leeds United

Al Ittihad

Ghana

Individual

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c "Tony Yeboah". Barry Hugman's Footballers. Retrieved 13 September 2018.
  2. ^ "Yegoala Fitness Club poised to make impact". Graphic Online. Retrieved 16 January 2021.
  3. ^ "Aubameyang equals Ghana legend Tony Yeboah's Bundesliga record after claiming golden boot - GHANAsoccernet.com". social_image. Retrieved 7 June 2017.
  4. ^ a b c "Tony Yeboah". RSSSF. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  5. ^ Ungruhe, Christian (2013). "Natural Born Sportsmen - processes of othering and self-charismatization of African professional footballers in Germany" (PDF). African Diaspora (6): 203–204.
  6. ^ "Anthony Yeboah: Missing The Frankfurters". Eintracht Frankfurt. Archived from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  7. ^ "(West) Germany – Top Scorers". Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation. 31 October 2013. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  8. ^ "Als Jupp Heynckes Trainer von Eintracht Frankfurt war". fnp.de (in German). 7 December 2017. Retrieved 27 February 2023.
  9. ^ "Anthony Yeboah: Former Frankfurt star blames coach Jupp Heynckes for his exit, says he is a racist". Ghana Soccernet. 28 October 2022. Retrieved 23 January 2025.
  10. ^ Amoasi Appiah, Samuel Ekow (1 June 2020). "Tony Yeboah Opens Up On His Collapsed Move To Bayern Munich". Modern Ghana. Retrieved 23 January 2025.
  11. ^ Carter, Gerald (10 January 1995). "Yeboah transfer may be blocked". The Independent. Retrieved 24 January 2025.
  12. ^ "ON THIS DAY: 1995 Leeds United signed Tony Yeboah from Eintracht Frankfurt". Modern Ghana. 5 January 2015. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  13. ^ a b c d "Leeds United: Twenty years on, is this Yeboah goal now regarded as United's best?". Yorkshire Evening Post. 17 August 2015. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  14. ^ "Tony Yeboah talks golazos; Reigniting FIFA vs PES wars".
  15. ^ "Anthony Yeboah – I Followed My Dreams". Modern Ghana. 20 February 2008. Retrieved 9 April 2012.
  16. ^ LTD, Digital Sports Group. "Hat-Trick Heroes". LeedsUtdMAD.
  17. ^ Brenkley, Stephen (23 September 1995). "Yeboah up to his old tricks". Independent. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  18. ^ a b "Yeboah: Anthony (Tony)". Ozwhitelufc.net.au. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  19. ^ "Exclusive: Leeds hero Tony Yeboah admits his love of Yorkshire puddings – and settles debate of his Liverpool and Wimbledon goals". FourFourTwo. 19 November 2020. Retrieved 24 January 2025.
  20. ^ "Yeboah out for Leeds". The Irish Times. 10 August 1996. Retrieved 24 January 2025.
  21. ^ Maddock, David (24 February 1997). "Graham ahead on points; Football". The Times. Retrieved 24 January 2025.
  22. ^ Hutchinson, Andrew (1 April 2021). "How a Leeds United legend's act of petulance raised questions over his future". Yorkshire Evening Post. Retrieved 24 January 2025.
  23. ^ "No show from Yeboah". The Independent. 8 July 1997. Retrieved 24 January 2025.
  24. ^ Staniforth, Tommy (3 September 1997). "Yeboah transfer stalled". The Independent. Retrieved 24 January 2025.
  25. ^ Arnhold, Matthias. "Anthony 'Tony' Yeboah – League Matches and Goals". Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation. Retrieved 16 May 2011.
  26. ^ "Yeboah in tax probe". BBC Sport. 17 July 2000. Retrieved 24 January 2025.
  27. ^ "Yeboah threatens to quit". GhanaWeb. 18 June 2001. Retrieved 24 January 2025.
  28. ^ "Yeboah's future in doubt". BBC Sport. 19 November 2001. Retrieved 24 January 2025.
  29. ^ "Yeboah goes East". BBC Sport. 11 December 2001. Retrieved 29 August 2007.
  30. ^ "Tony Yeboah". worldfootball.net. World Football. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  31. ^ "Top 5 Ghanaian players who made their mark in the English Premier League". Ghana Soccernet. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  32. ^ "Anthony "Tony" Yeboah - Goals in International Matches". RSSSF. 4 June 2020. Retrieved 24 January 2025.
  33. ^ "Tony Yeboah opens can of worms with same old brutal efficiency". GhanaWeb. 31 May 2020. Retrieved 24 January 2025.
  34. ^ "We will survive-Tony Yeboah". Modern Ghana. 25 November 2008. Retrieved 23 May 2013.
  35. ^ Zocher, Thomas (21 February 2012). "Yeboah changed date of birth". Sky Sports. Retrieved 24 January 2025.
  36. ^ "Yeboah admits to having fake DOB on passport". GhanaWeb. 21 February 2012. Retrieved 24 January 2025.
  37. ^ Lomas, Mark (27 August 2013). "Whatever happened to ... Tony Yeboah?". ESPN. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  38. ^ "Anthony Yeboah, Biography". www.ghanaweb.com. Retrieved 10 March 2021.
  39. ^ Alderman, Rob (17 January 2011). "What Ever Happened To: Tony Yeboah". In The Stands. Retrieved 21 January 2011.
  40. ^ "EXCLUSIVE: Tony Yeboah's son Kelvin signs one-year deal with German side WSG Wattens". Ghana Soccernet. 19 June 2018. Retrieved 10 December 2018.
  41. ^ "Family link inspires Obed Yeboah in pursuit of cup glory". AFC Wimbledon. 16 November 2020. Retrieved 12 September 2023.
  42. ^ "Anthony Yeboah" (in German). fussballdaten.de. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  43. ^ "Tony Yeboah, one of the first black players to play in Germany". Football Memories. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  44. ^ "Milosevic gives; Villa a touch of magic". The Independent. 25 March 1996. Retrieved 2 April 2024.
  45. ^ "Bundesliga Historie 1992/93" (in German). kicker. Archived from the original on 18 October 2012.
  46. ^ "Bundesliga Historie 1993/94" (in German). kicker. Archived from the original on 18 October 2012.
  47. ^ Pierrend, José Luis (16 January 2014). "FIFA Awards". Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  48. ^ "Anthony Yeboah: Overview". Premier League. Retrieved 27 September 2018.
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