Tony Yeboah

Anthony Yeboah (born 6 June 1966) is a Ghanaian former professional footballer who played as a striker.

He is considered one of the most prominent and prolific goal scorers in Ghanaian and African football history and gained a reputation for scoring spectacular goals which often featured in Goal of the Month or Goal of the Season competitions in the 1990s.

Yeboah is most noted for his time at European clubs 1. FC Saarbrücken, Eintracht Frankfurt, Leeds United and Hamburger SV. He also played for Asante Kotoko, Cornerstones Kumasi, Okwawu United and Al-Ittihad Doha. He was capped 59 times by Ghana, scoring 29 goals. He now runs an international sports agency and a chain of hotels in Ghana. He won the Bundesliga golden boot on two occasions, 1992–93 and 1993–94, playing for Eintracht Frankfurt.

Club career

Yeboah was born in Kumasi, Ghana. After spending his youth in Kumasi, Yeboah joined German club 1. FC Saarbrücken in 1988. This move was of some historical significance, because Yeboah became one of the first black players to appear in the Bundesliga. Yeboah had a slow first year, but then scored 17 league goals in his second Saarbrücken year.

Eintracht Frankfurt

Yeboah moved to Eintracht Frankfurt in 1990, where he was at first booed by a section of fans and—being the first black player the team had ever signed—subjected to monkey-noises and other racist insults. In the Hesse metropolis, Yeboah quickly established himself and became the first African Bundesliga club captain. He was the top Bundesliga scorer twice with Eintracht, in 1993 and 1994.

In December 1994 Eintracht's new manager Jupp Heynckes ordered extra training for Yeboah, Jay Jay Okocha and Maurizio Gaudino, who subsequently made themselves unavailable for the next fixture and were then suspended indefinitely by the club. Heynckes had also removed the captaincy from Yeboah, whom he considered to be three kilos overweight. Yeboah later attributed a racist motive to Heynckes and was also unhappy at Eintracht blocking his prospective transfer to Bayern Munich.

Leeds United

Yeboah joined English club Leeds United from Eintracht Frankfurt in January 1995, initially on loan but with an option to sign permanently for £3.4 million. He scored 12 times in 21 league appearances as Leeds finished fifth in the FA Premier League and qualified for the UEFA Cup. In his second season at Elland Road, he was voted Player of the Year. Yeboah scored a total of 32 goals for Leeds United in 66 appearances, and is still revered as a cult hero for the Yorkshire club due to a series of memorable goals he scored. His volley against Liverpool and his strike versus Wimbledon in the 1995–96 season were among his most notable goals, and he was a regular feature in Goal of the Month in the Premier League. He told Newstalk's Team 33 in 2014 that his favourite goal was the one he scored against Liverpool. The goal against Wimbledon was awarded Goal of the Season in 1995–96. Until Gareth Bale equalled the feat in 2013, Yeboah was the only player ever to win successive BBC Match of the Day Goal of the Month competitions, doing so in September and October 1995.

He also scored three hat-tricks for Leeds; the first against Ipswich Town in the Premier League at Elland Road on 5 April 1995, which made him only the third foreign player to score a league hat-trick for Leeds (Cantona v Tottenham in August 1992 was the first, and Phil Masinga three months earlier in an FA Cup tie). Yeboah's second hat-trick came against Monaco in the 1995–96 UEFA Cup on 12 September 1995, and the third 11 days later in the Premier League match against Wimbledon at Selhurst Park which included the aforementioned Goal of the Season. A video was released named ‘Yeboah – Shoot to Kill’ while he was at Leeds.

Injuries (several picked up while on international duty) restricted his game when he played and kept him out of the Leeds side on several occasions. He also developed a well-documented fondness for Yorkshire pudding. A knee injury curtailed his appearances at the end of 1995–96 and he underwent surgery in August 1996. When George Graham took over as Leeds manager in September 1996 he used Yeboah sparingly, considering him to be unfit. This brought about a rift between player and coach, which culminated in Yeboah throwing his shirt in the direction of the bench after being substituted in a 1–0 defeat by Tottenham Hotspur in March 1997.

Yeboah failed to report back for pre-season training ahead of 1997–98, hoping to force a transfer. He was sold to Hamburger SV in September 1997 for a fee of around £1 million, having played just six times in the 1996–97 season under Graham.

Later career

Yeboah remained with his German club Hamburger SV until 2001, scoring 28 goals. In January 2001 he was convicted on tax evasion charges relating to a signing on fee he had received when extending his Eintracht Frankfurt contract in 1993. He was fined 360,000 marks by the court and then fell into another financial dispute with the lawyer who had defended him in the case. After making just five appearances in the 2001–02 Hamburger SV season, he began negotiating a release from the final months of his contract in November 2001. He left in order to join Al Ittihad of the Qatar Stars League in December 2001, where he played under Austrian coach Josef Hickersberger.

International career

He was a member of Ghana's national team for over ten years, and represented his country at three Africa Cup of Nations during the 1990s. Yeboah reportedly scored 29 goals in 59 appearances for Ghana, the fourth highest goalscoring total in the nation's history behind Asamoah Gyan, Edward Acquah and Kwasi Owusu. RSSSF records credit Yeboah with 15 goals in 56 caps.

Yeboah featured for Ghana in their 1992 African Cup of Nations final defeat, but the occasion was marred by a dispute over the team captaincy. With Abedi Pele suspended, regular vice-captain Yeboah was controversially overlooked for the captaincy in favour of Anthony Baffoe.

Post-playing career

On 3 November 2008, he was appointed as the new chairman of the newly promoted Ghana Premier League club Berekum Chelsea.

Personal life

Yeboah entered Germany with a passport which stated his year of birth as 1964. He later modified this to 1966, explaining that he had used the pretend 1964 birth year to gain early access to senior football in Ghana when he was only 17 years old.

Yeboah along with his cousin former Mainz player Michael Osei runs an international sports agency called ''Anthony Yeboah Sportpromotion'' and owns a chain of hotels in Ghana (Accra, Kumasi) called ''Yegoala''. He is married and has two children.

His nephews, Kelvin and Obed Yeboah, are also professional footballers.

Career statistics

Club

International

''African Cup of Nations only.''

:''Scores and results list Ghana's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Yeboah goal.''

Honours

Asante Kotoko
* Ghana Premier League: 1981, 1982, 1983
* African Cup of Champions Clubs: 1983

Leeds United
*Football League Cup runner-up: 1995–96

Al Ittihad
*Qatar Stars League: 2001–02
*Emir of Qatar Cup: 2001–02
*Qatar Cup runner-up: 2001–02

Ghana
*African Cup of Nations runner-up: 1992
* West African Nations Cup – SCSA Zone III: 1982, 1983, 1984

Individual
* Ghana Premier League top scorer: 1986, 1987
*Bundesliga top scorer: 1992–93, 1993–94
*'' kicker'' Bundesliga Team of the Season: 1992–93, 1993–94
*African Footballer of the Year third: 1992; second: 1993
*FIFA World Player of the Year ninth: 1993
* Leeds United Player of the Year: 1996
* Ghana Footballer of the Year: 1997
* Premier League Player of the Month: March 1995, September 1995

References

External links

*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yeboah, Tony
1966 births
Living people
Men's association football forwards
Ghanaian men's footballers
Ghana men's international footballers
Footballers from Kumasi
1. FC Saarbrücken players
Eintracht Frankfurt players
Leeds United F.C. players
Hamburger SV players
Asante Kotoko S.C. players
Okwawu United S.C. players
Al-Gharafa SC players
Ghana Premier League players
Bundesliga players
2. Bundesliga players
Premier League players
Qatar Stars League players
Kicker-Torjägerkanone Award winners
Expatriate men's footballers in Germany
Expatriate men's footballers in England
Ghanaian expatriate men's footballers
Ghanaian expatriate sportspeople in Germany
Ghanaian expatriate sportspeople in England
1992 African Cup of Nations players
1996 African Cup of Nations players
1994 African Cup of Nations players
Cornerstone F.C. players
Ghana Premier League top scorers
Expatriate men's footballers in West Germany
20th-century Ghanaian sportsmen