Mohamed Kamara (born 16 November 1987), widely known as Medo, is a Sierra Leonean 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 lea ...

who plays as a

defensive midfielder In the sport of association football, a midfielder takes an outfield position primarily in the middle of the pitch. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. ...

for Finnish club HJS.

Early life

Kamara was born in

Port Loko Port Loko is the capital of Port Loko District and since 2017 the North West Province of Sierra Leone. The city had a population of 21,961 in the 2004 census and current estimate of 44,900. Port Loko lies approximately north-east of Freetown. ...

and raised in Bo, Sierra Leone. Both of his parents were said to have been killed during the civil war in Sierra Leone. However, this is a claim that has since been denied by Kamara himself.

Club career

Early career

Kamara started playing football in his school at the age of seven. His older brother, Kemoh Kamara, was teaching in the school and also taught football. At the age of 12, Kamara joined his first club, Sierra Rangers. His football career took a great step forward after signing for top division club Kallon in 2002.

Career in Finland

Jani Hartikainen and Ilja Venalainen KuPS with Medo HJK

After playing for the national youth selection at the

2003 FIFA U-17 World Championship The 2003 FIFA U-17 World Championship, was the tenth edition of FIFA U-17 World Cup, FIFA U-17 World Championship. It was held in the cities of Helsinki, Tampere, Lahti and Turku in Finland from 13 to 30 August 2003. Players born after 1 January 19 ...

held in Finland, Kamara escaped along with several teammates from their accommodation and applied for asylum. After he got asylum, Kamara was ineligible to play professional football until his 18th birthday. During the waiting period, he trained with LehPa-77 in

Kontiolahti Kontiolahti (; literally meaning "bear bay") is a municipalities of Finland, municipality in Finland. It is located in the North Karelia regions of Finland, region, about north of Joensuu. The municipality has a population of () and covers an ar ...

. Kamara signed his first contract with

Veikkausliiga Veikkausliiga () is a professional association football league in Finland and the highest level of the Finnish football league system. The league comprises the top 12 clubs of the country. Its main sponsor is the Finnish national betting agenc ...

club

KuPS Kuopion Palloseura, commonly referred to as KuPS, is a Finnish professional football club based in Kuopio. KuPS competes in Veikkausliiga, the top flight of Finnish football. The team plays its home matches at Kuopio Football Stadium. KuPS ha ...

before the 2006 season. After a season and relegation with the

Kuopio Kuopio ( , ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of North Savo. It is located in the Finnish Lakeland. The population of Kuopio is approximately , while the Kuopio sub-region, sub-region has a population of approximately . It is the mos ...

-based club, he moved to HJK in the Finnish capital. In his first year with HJK, Kamara played in every league match and was voted for the club MVP of the season. In March 2008, he signed a new three-year contract, which would keep him with HJK until the end of the 2010. In April 2010, Kamara signed a contract extension at HJK to stay with the Finnish champions until June 2011. On 30 August 2010, he played his farewell match for HJK, in a 3–1 victory against

IFK Mariehamn IFK Mariehamn is a Finnish football club based in Mariehamn, the capital of the Åland Islands. It plays in the Finnish Premier Division (''Veikkausliiga''), winning their first title in 2016. The club is managed by Gary Williams, and it plays ...

. Despite the fact that he left HJK before the end of the season, Kamara was awarded for the 2010 Veikkausliiga Player of the Year.

Partizan

On 31 August 2010, a day after his last match for HJK, Kamara signed a three-year contract with Serbian side Partizan. He was presented with together with

Pierre Boya Pierre Boya (born 16 January 1984) is a Cameroonian professional footballer who plays as a striker. Club career On 10 November 2003, Boya signed a four-year contract with Partizan. He scored a goal on his debut for the club two weeks later in ...

. Kamara made his debut for the club on 4 September 2010 in a home fixture against

Hajduk Kula FK Hajduk Kula (Serbian Cyrillic: ФК Хајдук Кула) was a Serbian football club based in Kula. The club was named after a Hajduk, a much celebrated hero figure in the Serbian epic poetry. On 30 July 2013, just eleven days before start ...

. He played for the full duration of the match as Hajduk were beaten 2–0. Kamara also made five appearances in the

2010–11 UEFA Champions League The 2010–11 UEFA Champions League was the 56th season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 19th under the UEFA Champions League format. The final was held at Wembley Stadium in London on 28 May 2011, where Ba ...

group stage.

Bolton Wanderers

On 31 January 2013, Kamara signed for English

Championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this sys ...

club

Bolton Wanderers Bolton Wanderers Football Club ( ) is a professional association football, football club based in Horwich, Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, Greater Manchester, England, which competes in EFL League One, League One, the third level of the Englis ...

on a three-and-a-half-year contract for an undisclosed fee, subject to international clearance. His debut came on 23 February as he came on as a substitute in Bolton's 4–1 win versus

Hull City Hull City Association Football Club is a professional association football club based in Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. They compete in the , the second level of the English football league system. They play their home ...

. His first goal for the club came on 30 March against

Charlton Athletic Charlton Athletic Football Club is a professional association football club based in Charlton, south-east London, England. The team compete in the EFL Championship, the second level of the English football league system. Their home ground is ...

as he scored Bolton's second in a 2–3 defeat. On 19 January 2015, Kamara was officially loaned to

Maccabi Haifa Maccabi Haifa () is one of the biggest sports clubs in Israel and a part of the Maccabi association. It runs several sports clubs and teams in Haifa which have competed in a variety of sports over the years, such as Football, Basketball, Weightl ...

for the remainder of the 2014–15 season. After returning from loan to Bolton, Kamara failed to make any competitive appearance for the club, before being released by mutual agreement in January 2016.

Return to HJK

In March 2016, Kamara returned to his former club HJK.

Kazma

On 31 January 2019, it was confirmed that Kamara had signed for another Kuwaiti side,

Kazma SC Kazma Sporting Club () is a Kuwaiti professional association football, football club. Founded in 1964, the club competes in the Kuwaiti Premier League. Club history Naming The club is named after the area of Kathma, which is located 40 kilomete ...

in the

Kuwait Premier League The Kuwait Premier League (), known as Zain Premier League due to sponsorship reasons, is the top division of the Kuwait football pyramid system. Formed in 1961, Kuwait SC holds the best record in the competition, having won 20 times. History The ...

. Kamara had been without club for six months since his departure from

Kuwait SC Kuwait Sports Club () is a Kuwaiti professional football club based in Kuwait City. Their football team has won Kuwait Premier League 19 times and has won over 50 trophies overall. The club plays in the Al Kuwait Sports Club Stadium located i ...

. In 2022 Medo signed contract with Finnish second division club Gnistan. In 2024 he joined Finnish club HJS, which plays third tier football in Finland.

International career

Internationally, Kamara played for the Sierra Leonean under-17 team that finished runner-up of the 2003 African U-17 Championship in Swaziland. He was also a member of the same team at the

in Finland. By 2010, he had received Finnish citizenship. After spending seven years in Finland, Kamara has expressed his wish to play for the Finnish national team, but

FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...

ruled this out as they rejected his application to play for Finland in December 2010. After FIFA's decision, Kamara announced his availability for the Sierra Leonean national team and was subsequently called up to face

Niger Niger, officially the Republic of the Niger, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is a unitary state Geography of Niger#Political geography, bordered by Libya to the Libya–Niger border, north-east, Chad to the Chad–Niger border, east ...

on 27 March 2011. Finally, Kamara debuted for his homeland in that match playing the full 90 minutes.

Career statistics

Club

International

:''Scores and results list Sierra Leone's goal tally first.''

Honours

KuPS *

Finnish League Cup The Finnish League Cup (in Finnish: ''Liigacup''), is a knock-out football competition contested annually during the pre-season in winter by teams from Veikkausliiga. The competition is notably the only football competition in Europe which is most ...

: 2006 HJK *

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

Finnish Cup The Finnish Cup (; ) is Finland's main national cup competition in football. This yearly competition is open for all member clubs of the FA of Finland and has been played since 1955. The winner qualifies for the UEFA Europa Conference League ...

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

Partizan *

Serbian SuperLiga The Serbian Super League (), also known as Mozzart SuperLiga for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Serbia and the highest level of the Serbian football league system. Contested by 16 clubs, it operates on a sys ...

2010–11 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

, 2011–12 *

Serbian Cup The Serbian Cup ( Serbian: Куп Србије / Kup Srbije), also known as Mozzart Serbian Cup for sponsorship reasons, is the national football cup of Serbia. The winner of the competition gets a spot in the UEFA Europa League qualifying round. ...

Individual *

Player of the Year:

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

veikkausliiga.com
*

Team of the Season: 2011–12

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kamara, Medo 1987 births Living people People from Port Loko District People from Bo, Sierra Leone Finnish people of Sierra Leonean descent Naturalized citizens of Finland Sierra Leonean men's footballers Sierra Leone men's international footballers Men's association football midfielders 2021 Africa Cup of Nations players Kuwait Premier League players Serbian SuperLiga players English Football League players Veikkausliiga players Israeli Premier League players Bolton Wanderers F.C. players FK Partizan players Kuopion Palloseura players Maccabi Haifa F.C. players Helsingin Jalkapalloklubi players Kuwait SC players Kazma SC players FC Haka players IF Gnistan players HJS Akatemia players Sierra Leonean expatriate men's footballers Sierra Leonean expatriate sportspeople in England Expatriate men's footballers in England Sierra Leonean expatriate sportspeople in Finland Expatriate men's footballers in Finland Sierra Leonean expatriate sportspeople in Israel Expatriate men's footballers in Israel Sierra Leonean expatriate sportspeople in Serbia Expatriate men's footballers in Serbia Sierra Leonean expatriate sportspeople in Kuwait Expatriate men's footballers in Kuwait Refugees in Finland Sierra Leonean refugees