Thomas Sowunmi (born 25 July 1978) is a Hungarian retired

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 ...

. Sowunmi was born in Nigeria to a Hungarian mother and a Nigerian Yoruba father and spent the first nine years of his life in the African state. He started playing football aged 13 and began a professional football career with Dunaferr. Sowunmi left for Vasas Budapest in 1998 but returned to his first club in 2001. He made his first appearance for

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

in August 1999, in a 1–1 draw against

Moldova Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova, is a Landlocked country, landlocked country in Eastern Europe, with an area of and population of 2.42 million. Moldova is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. ...

. Sowunmi was the first

person of color The term "person of color" (: people of color or persons of color; abbreviated POC) is used to describe any person who is not considered "white". In its current meaning, the term originated in, and is associated with, the United States. From th ...

to represent Hungary at football. He spent a short spell in France with

AC Ajaccio Athletic Club Ajaccien (), commonly referred to as AC Ajaccio, ACA or simply Ajaccio, is a French professional football club based in the city of Ajaccio on the island of Corsica. The club was founded in 1910 and plays in the Ligue 2, the sec ...

but returned to Hungary with Ferencvaros in 2003. He was signed by FC Slovacko in 2005 but after one season became involved in a dispute with the club. Eventually he was released from his attachment to the Czech team following police and

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 ...

intervention. Sowunmi signed for Scottish club Hibernian on 6 February 2007 after impressing manager John Collins while on trial. In just his second match he came on as a half-time substitute in a

Scottish Cup The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,Queen of the South and scored the decisive goal in a 2–1 win. Sowunmi was released by Hibernian in June, and Sowunmi re-signed for Vasas Budapest in September 2007.

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