Kofi Balmer (born 19 September 2000) is a Northern Irish professional footballer who plays 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 club

Motherwell Motherwell (, ) is a List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, town and former burgh in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, United Kingdom, south east of Glasgow. It has a population of around 32,120. Shires of Scotland, Historically in the p ...

. He has won caps for Northern Ireland up to under-21 level. Balmer made his debut in the

NIFL Premiership The NIFL Premiership, known as the Sports Direct Premiership for sponsorship purposes, and Irish Premiership colloquially, is a professional association football league which operates as the highest division of the Northern Ireland Football L ...

with

Ballymena United Ballymena United Football Club is a semi-professional football club from Northern Ireland. Based in Ballymena, County Antrim, the team competes in the NIFL Premiership and plays home matches at the Ballymena Showgrounds. The club has been man ...

in April 2017, aged only 16. He spent just over four seasons with the club, playing on the losing side in the 2018

County Antrim Shield The County Antrim & District Football Association Senior Shield (more commonly known as the County Antrim Shield) is a football competition in Northern Ireland. The competition is open to senior teams who are members of the North East Ulster F ...

, 2018

Northern Ireland Football League Cup The Northern Ireland Football League Cup (known as the BetMcLean Cup for sponsorship purposes, and commonly known as the Irish League Cup) is a national football knock-out cup competition in Northern Ireland open to all member clubs of the N ...

, and 2020

Irish Cup The Irish Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly referred to as the Irish Cup (currently known as the Clearer Water Irish Cup for sponsorship purposes) is the primary Association football, football single elimination, knockout cup compet ...

finals. He was named Ulster Young Footballer of the Year for the 2018–19 season. Upon joining

Larne Larne (, , the name of a Gaelic Ireland, Gaelic territory)Larne/Latharna
Placenames Database of Ireland. is a to ...

in 2021, he turned professional and would win the County Antrim Shield the following year. He was sold to

Crystal Palace Crystal Palace may refer to: Places Canada * Crystal Palace Complex (Dieppe), a former amusement park now a shopping complex in Dieppe, New Brunswick * Crystal Palace Barracks, London, Ontario * Crystal Palace (Montreal), an exhibition buildin ...

in August 2022, from where he was

loan In finance, a loan is the tender of money by one party to another with an agreement to pay it back. The recipient, or borrower, incurs a debt and is usually required to pay interest for the use of the money. The document evidencing the deb ...

ed out to

Port Vale Port Vale Football Club are a professional football club based in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, England, which compete in , the third tier of the English football league system. Vale are named after the valley of ports on the Trent and Mersey Canal ...

for the first half of the 2023–24 season and

AFC Wimbledon AFC Wimbledon is an English professional association football club based in Wimbledon, London, Wimbledon, London Borough of Merton, London. The team competes in , the third tier of the English football league system. The club was founded in ...

for the second half. He signed with Scottish club Motherwell in June 2024.

Early life

Kofi Balmer was born on 19 September 2000 in

Newtownabbey Newtownabbey ( ) is a large settlement north of Belfast city centre in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is separated from the rest of the city by Cavehill and Fortwilliam golf course, but it still forms part of the Belfast metropolitan area ...

. His parents named him

Kofi Kofi is an Akan people, Akan masculine given name among the Akan people (such as the Bono people, Bono, Akyem, Akwamu, Ashanti people, Ashanti and Fante people, Fante) in Ghana that is given to a boy born on Friday. Traditionally in Ghana, a child ...

– a name traditionally given to a child born on a Friday by the

Akan people The Akan () people are a kwa languages, Kwa group living primarily in present-day Ghana and in parts of Ivory Coast and Togo in West Africa. The Akan speak languages within the Central Tano languages, Central Tano branch of the Potou–Tano la ...

– reportedly after

Kofi Annan Kofi Atta Annan (8 April 193818 August 2018) was a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. He was the founder a ...

, the

Secretary-General of the United Nations The secretary-general of the United Nations (UNSG or UNSECGEN) is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations and head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the United Nations System#Six principal organs, six principal organs of ...

. However, the family had no Ghanaian lineage, and he was born on a Tuesday.

Club career

Ballymena United

Balmer scored on his

debut for

on 29 April 2017, aged only 16, securing a 1–1 draw at

Coleraine Coleraine ( ; from , 'nook of the ferns'Flanaghan, Deirdre & Laurence; ''Irish Place Names'', page 194. Gill & Macmillan, 2002. ) is a town and Civil parishes in Ireland, civil parish near the mouth of the River Bann in County Londonderry, No ...

Manager Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a government bodies through business administration, nonprofit management, or the political science sub-field of public administra ...

David Jeffrey David Jeffrey (born 28 October 1962) is a Northern Irish former football player and manager. He managed Linfield between 1997 and 2014 and Ballymena United from 2016 to 2023. Jeffrey began his professional playing career with Linfield, follo ...

described him as "an old head on young shoulders". He played 27 matches in the 2017–18 season, and also featured in the

defeat to

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...

and in the

final defeat to

Dungannon Swifts Dungannon Swifts Football Club is a Northern Irish semi-professional football club playing in the NIFL Premiership. The club, founded in 1949, has risen from the Mid-Ulster league to the top tier in Northern Ireland since its election to the I ...

. He was named as Ulster Young Footballer of the Year in after featuring 28 times in the 2018–19 campaign. He played 24 games in the 2019–20 season, including four appearances in the qualifying rounds of the

UEFA Europa League The UEFA Europa League (UEL), usually known simply as the Europa League, is an annual association football, football club competition organised since 1971 by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European footb ...

. He also played in the 2020

defeat to

Glentoran Glentoran Football Club is a professional football club based in East Belfast, Northern Ireland, that plays in the NIFL Premiership. The club was founded in 1882 and has since won more than 130 major honours. They are one of three Northern Iris ...

Windsor Park The National Football Stadium at Windsor Park (officially the Clearer Twist National Stadium at Windsor Park for sponsorship reasons), or the National Football Stadium, also known as Windsor Park is a association football, football stadium in B ...

. A key member of the team who delivered decisive performances on a regular basis, he scored four goals in 16 games in the

2020–21 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 ...

league campaign.

Larne

Balmer joined Irish Premiership rivals

Larne Larne (, , the name of a Gaelic Ireland, Gaelic territory)Larne/Latharna
Placenames Database of Ireland. is a to ...

to become a full-time professional. During the 2021–22 season, he played 35 league games, and also played in four UEFA Europa Conference League qualifying matches, where Larne made it to the third round where they were knocked out by Portuguese Primeira Liga side

Paços de Ferreira Paços de Ferreira () is a city in the Porto District, in the north of Portugal. The population of the city in 2011 was 7491, while its municipality had 56,340 inhabitants, in an area of 70.99 km². Sometimes referred to as the ''Capital do ...

despite winning 1–0 at Inver Park. Larne also won the County Antrim Shield, beating league champions Linfield in the final; Balmer played in the 1–0 victory on 11 January, despite having to face his father's death the previous week. He signed a

contract A contract is an agreement that specifies certain legally enforceable rights and obligations pertaining to two or more parties. A contract typically involves consent to transfer of goods, services, money, or promise to transfer any of thos ...

extension the following month.

Crystal Palace

On 11 August 2022, Balmer was signed to

for an undisclosed fee. Manager

Patrick Vieira Patrick Paul Vieira (; born 23 June 1976) is a French professional association football, football manager and former player who is the head coach of Serie A club Genoa CFC, Genoa. He was named in the FIFA 100 of the greatest living footballers i ...

named him on the bench for three

Premier League The Premier League is a professional association football league in England and the highest level of the English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Football Lea ...

games in October 2022. He featured 33 times for the under-21 side, including in the side's run to the Premier League International Cup final. On 15 July 2023, he joined League One side

for the 2023–24 season, having already played for manager

Andy Crosby Andrew Keith Crosby (born 3 March 1973) is an English professional football manager and former player who is the manager at club Tranmere Rovers. A defender during his playing days, he began his career at Leeds United. Still, he made his de ...

in his international career. He

tore Tore may refer to: Places * Tõre, Estonia, a village * Tore, Scotland, a village * Töre, Sweden, a locality * Töre River, Sweden * Tore (volcano), Papua New Guinea People * Tore (given name), a Scandinavian given name * Elihan Tore (1885–1976 ...

his

hamstring A hamstring () is any one of the three posterior thigh muscles in human anatomy between the hip and the knee: from medial to lateral, the semimembranosus, semitendinosus and biceps femoris. Etymology The word " ham" is derived from the Old ...

in a 1–0 defeat to

Peterborough United Peterborough United Football Club is a professional association football club based in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England. The team compete in League One, the third level of the English football league system. Peterborough United formed in ...

Vale Park Vale Park is a football stadium in the area of Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, and it has been the home ground of Port Vale Football Club since its opening in 1950. It has a current capacity of 15,695, and was renovated durin ...

on 24 October, which saw him ruled out of action for six weeks. He was recalled to Crystal Palace on 16 January 2024, having played 16 games for the Valiants. On 31 January 2024, Balmer joined League Two club

on loan for the remainder of the 2023–24 season, having been recommended to the club by former Vale teammate Ethan Chislett. Manager Johnnie Jackson said that "he will play a key role in helping us to kick-on in the second half of the season". He scored his first goal in the

English Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional association football, football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, it is the oldest football league in Association football around the world, the w ...

in a 2–0 win at

Notts County Notts County Football Club is a professional association football, football club in Nottingham, England, which competes in EFL League Two, the fourth tier of Football in England, English football, following promotion and relegation, promotion ...

on 9 March. He was reported to be a summer transfer target for St Mirren.

Motherwell

On 11 June 2024, Balmer agreed on a two-year deal with

Scottish Premiership The Scottish Premiership, also known as the William Hill (bookmaker), William Hill Premiership for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Scotland and the highest level of the Scottish football league system. Th ...

club

, with the option of a further year. He scored on his debut for the "Steelmen" in the

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 ...

the following month, though had to wait until the end of September for his Premiership debut when he entered the pitch as a substitute following a red card to Dan Casey. He was sent off in a 2–0 defeat at

Kilmarnock Kilmarnock ( ; ; , ), meaning "the church of Mernóc", is a town and former burgh in East Ayrshire situated in southwest Scotland. The town has served as the administrative centre of East Ayrshire Council since 1996 and is the region's main ...

on 5 April. However, his red card was overturned on appeal after manager Michael Wimmer saw the sending off as a refereeing error.

International career

Balmer is a youth international for Northern Ireland, having played with the under-19s and under-21s, captaining both sides. Balmer was first called to the Northern Ireland senior team by

Ian Baraclough Ian Robert Baraclough (; born 4 December 1970) is an English football manager and former player who is currently sporting director at Partick Thistle, of the Scottish Championship. His most recent role had been a short spell as assistant manager ...

in September 2022.

Style of play

Playing mainly as a

, Balmer is also able to play on both sides, as a full-back or a wing-back. He is good on the ball and cool under pressure, with good leadership skills.

Career statistics

Honours

Ballymena United *

runner-up:

2018 Events January * January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency. * January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...

runner-up:

2020 The year 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of even ...

Larne *

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

Individual *Ulster Young Footballer of the Year: 2018–19

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Balmer, Kofi 2000 births Living people People from Newtownabbey Association footballers from County Antrim Men's association footballers from Northern Ireland 21st-century sportsmen from Northern Ireland Northern Ireland men's youth international footballers Northern Ireland men's under-21 international footballers Men's association football central defenders Ballymena United F.C. players Larne F.C. players Crystal Palace F.C. players Port Vale F.C. players AFC Wimbledon players Motherwell F.C. players NIFL Premiership players English Football League players