Marc Jensen Rieper (; born 5 June 1968) is a Danish former professional footballer who played as a

centre-back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield player whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Defenders fall into four main categories: centre-backs, full-backs, sweepers ...

for AGF and Brøndby in Denmark, West Ham United in England and Celtic in Scotland. He was also a regular player in the Denmark national team, appearing in the Euro 1996 and

1998 FIFA World Cup The 1998 FIFA World Cup was the 16th FIFA World Cup, the Association football, football world championship for List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams. The finals tournament was held in France from 10 June to 1 ...

tournaments. He is the older brother of footballer Mads Rieper.

Club career

Born in

Rødovre Rødovre () is a town in eastern Denmark, seat of the Rødovre Municipality, in the Capital Region of Denmark, Region Hovedstaden. The town's population 1 January 2019 was 39,907, and in addition 145 persons had no fixed address, which made up a ...

, Rieper started his career at Danish club AGF in 1988. While at AGF, he debuted for the Danish national team in the 1–0

friendly match An exhibition game (also known as a friendly, scrimmage, demonstration, training match, pre-season game, warmup match, or preparation match, depending at least in part on the sport) is a sport, sporting event whose prize money and impact on th ...

win against

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

on 5 September 1990. He played a further three national team matches before moving on to

Danish Superliga The Danish Superliga (, ) is a professional association football league in Denmark and the highest level of the Danish football league system. The league is currently contested by 12 teams each year, with 2 teams relegated. It is the current ...

rivals Brøndby IF in 1992. While at Brøndby, he secured a place in the national team starting line-up and played 38 matches in a row from October 1992 to August 1996. Rieper won the 1994

Danish Cup The Danish Cup (; often referred to as Pokalen) is the official "single-elimination tournament, knockout" cup competition in Danish football, run by the Danish Football Association. The cup has been contested annually since 1955. The winner will ...

trophy with Brøndby before moving abroad in December that year to play for English Premiership club West Ham United, signing initially on loan before a £1 million fee at the end of the season made the transfer permanent. In 1997, he moved to Scotland to play for Celtic, with whom he won the Scottish league championship in 1997–98. Rieper suffered a toe injury in October 1998 which he never fully recovered from. He did not make another professional appearance and announced his retirement in July 2000.

International career

Rieper played 61 matches and scored two goals for the Denmark national team, first as the defensive partner of Lars Olsen and most prominently as part of a defending duo with Jes Høgh in the UEFA Euro 1996 and

tournaments. He was ever-present for the Danish team which won the 1995 King Fahd Cup and played in all of Denmark's three matches at UEFA Euro 1996. At the 1998 FIFA World Cup, Rieper played full-time for the Danish national team, and scored against

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

. Denmark's World Cup campaign ended in a quarter-final defeat to eventual runners-up

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

Post-playing career

Following his retirement, Rieper spent some time in 2001 as an assistant coach at AGF. Through his connections to Celtic, he brought over many reserve team players to AGF, including future

Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 Counties of Ireland, counties of the island of Ireland, with a population of about 5.4 million. ...

footballer Liam Miller. After head coach John Stampe was fired in 2002, Rieper resigned from the club. He now owns and runs a hotel in the town of

Aarhus Aarhus (, , ; officially spelled Århus from 1948 until 1 January 2011) is the second-largest city in Denmark and the seat of Aarhus municipality, Aarhus Municipality. It is located on the eastern shore of Jutland in the Kattegat sea and app ...

, is a member of the board of directors at AGF and is the owner of women's online fashion store BA10.dk.

Honours

1994 * King Fahd Cup 1995 * Scottish Premier Division 1998 *

Scottish League Cup The Scottish League Cup, also known as the Premier Sports Cup for sponsorship reasons, is a football competition open to all Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) clubs. First held in 1946–47, it is the oldest national League cup in ...

1997

References

External links

*
Sporting-Heroes career statistics
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rieper, Marc 1968 births Living people Footballers from Rødovre People named in the Panama Papers Danish men's footballers Men's association football central defenders Denmark men's international footballers Denmark men's under-21 international footballers Danish Superliga players Premier League players Scottish Premier League players Aarhus Gymnastikforening players Brøndby IF players West Ham United F.C. players Celtic F.C. players 1995 King Fahd Cup players UEFA Euro 1996 players 1998 FIFA World Cup players FIFA Confederations Cup–winning players Scottish Football League players Danish expatriate men's footballers Danish expatriate sportspeople in England Expatriate men's footballers in England Danish expatriate sportspeople in Scotland Expatriate men's footballers in Scotland 20th-century Danish sportsmen