Adeleke Akinola Akinyemi (born 11 August 1998) is a

Nigerian Nigerians or the Nigerian people are citizens of Nigeria or people with ancestry from Nigeria. The name Nigeria was taken from the Niger River running through the country. This name was allegedly coined in the late 19th century by British jour ...

professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

playing as a

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People * Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Sm ...

for

Veikkausliiga Veikkausliiga (; sv, Tipsligan) is the premier division of Finnish football, the highest tier of the Finnish football league structure, comprising the top 12 clubs of the country. Its main sponsor is the Finnish national betting agency Veikka ...

club

Ilves Ilves (; Finnish for "Lynx") is a Finnish professional ice hockey team based in Tampere. They play in the Liiga at the Tampere Deck Arena. The colors of Ilves, green, yellow, and black, were taken from what was then the coat of arms of the ci ...

Club career

Serdarlı GB

On 24 January 2015, Akinyemi signed for

KTFF Süper Lig The KTFF Süper Lig (English: CTFA Super League), formerly known as Birinci Lig (literally ''First League'') is the top football league in Northern Cyprus. The league was founded in 1955 and is currently contested by 16 teams. At the end of th ...

side Serdarlı GB. He played 13 matches in the league, scoring 10 goals. In total, he played 17 matches and scored 11 goals for the Turkish Cypriot side during the 2014–15 season.

Ventspils

In early August 2018, Akinyemi went

AWOL Desertion is the abandonment of a military duty or Military base, post without permission (a Pass (military), pass, Shore leave, liberty or Leave (U.S. military), leave) and is done with the intention of not returning. This contrasts with u ...

, resulting in his club,

FK Ventspils FK Ventspils is a Latvian football club, based at Ventspils Olimpiskais Stadions in Ventspils city and is one of the most popular football clubs in the country. The club played in the Latvian Virsliga since 1997. It was abolished in 2020, but ha ...

filling a missing persons report amid fear the player had been kidnapped. Akinyemi returned to Ventspils a few days later, 13 August, playing in their win over

FK Liepāja FK Liepāja/Mogo is a Latvian football club, founded in 2014. The club is based at the Daugava Stadium in Liepāja. FK Liepāja plays in the Latvian Higher League. In their first season they finished 4th in the 2014 Latvian Higher League. His ...

on the same day.

Start

On 16 August 2018,

IK Start Idrettsklubben Start (or simply IK Start, translates to The sports club Start ) is a Norwegian football club from the city of Kristiansand that currently plays in the 1. divisjon, the second tier of the Norwegian football league system. The cl ...

announced the signing of Akinyemi, on a contract until the end of the 2021 season, from

. After scoring 3 goals in Start's 2018 campaign which ended in relegation, in the

2019 1. divisjon The 2019 1. divisjon (referred to as OBOS-ligaen for sponsorship reasons) was a Norwegian second-tier football league season. Aalesund set a new record for most points in a 1. divisjon season with 79. They surpassed IK Start's previous record ...

season opener he broke his ankle. He was sidelined for a long time and failed to break into Start's first team after that. The former top scorer did not manage any goals during a loan to

Hamkam Hamarkameratene (literally ''the Hamar Comrades''), often abbreviated to HamKam or Ham-Kam, is a Norwegian football club based in the town of Hamar. The club was founded in 1918, originally under the name Freidig. HamKam were most recently pr ...

in 2020 either. Following a goalless league run in 2021, Start decided to release him after the end of the 2021 season.

Karviná

On 6 February 2023,

Karviná Karviná (; pl, Karwina, , german: Karwin) is a city in the Moravian-Silesian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 50,000 inhabitants. It lies on the Olza River in the historical region of Cieszyn Silesia. Karviná is known as an indust ...

announced the signing of Akinyemi, from

KF Laçi Klubi i Futbollit Laçi is an Albanian professional football club based in Laç that competes in the Kategoria Superiore, the top flight of Albanian football. Founded in 1960 as Industriali Laç, it became KS Laçi in 1991 and KF Laçi in 1997 ...

Ilves

On 27 August 2024, Akinyemi joined

in Finnish

, signing a deal for the rest of the season with an option for the 2025. On 1 September, Akiyemi scored in his Ilves debut, in a 1–1 away draw against

Gnistan IF Gnistan (''The Spark'' in English) is a Finnish football club from the city of Helsinki, founded in 1924. The club is currently playing in the Ykkönen, the second tier of the Finnish league system. IF Gnistan play their home matches at Must ...

in the league.

Career statistics

Club

Honours

MFK Karviná *

Czech National Football League The Czech National Football League ( cs, Fotbalová národní liga, ''FNL''), currently known as Fortuna národní liga due to sponsorship reasons, is the second level professional association football league in the Czech Republic. Before 2013 it ...

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

Ventspils *

Latvian Cup The Latvian Football Cup () is the main knockout cup competition in Latvian football. Since 2021, its full name is Responsible Game Latvian Football Cup (''Atbildīgas spēles Latvijas kauss'') due to the sponsorship by sports betting company Wi ...

: 2017 Individual *

Virslīga Latvian Higher League or Virslīga is a professional football league and the top tier of association football in Latvia. Organised by the Latvian Football Federation, the Higher League is contested by 10 clubs. The full name of the league is O ...

top goalscorer:

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Akinyemi, Adeleke 1998 births Living people Nigerian men's footballers Real Sapphire F.C. players Men's association football forwards KF Skënderbeu Korçë players KF Trepça '89 players FK Ventspils players IK Start players Hamarkameratene players Ilves (football) players Veikkausliiga players Nigerian expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Northern Cyprus Nigerian expatriate sportspeople in Northern Cyprus Expatriate men's footballers in Albania Nigerian expatriate sportspeople in Albania Expatriate men's footballers in Kosovo Nigerian expatriate sportspeople in Kosovo Expatriate men's footballers in Latvia Nigerian expatriate sportspeople in Latvia Expatriate men's footballers in Norway Nigerian expatriate sportspeople in Norway Latvian Higher League players Eliteserien players Norwegian First Division players MFK Karviná players Czech National Football League players Nigerian expatriate sportspeople in the Czech Republic Expatriate men's footballers in the Czech Republic Nigerian expatriate sportspeople in Finland Expatriate men's footballers in Finland