Nii Lamptey

Nii Odartey Lamptey (born 10 December 1974) is a Ghanaian former professional footballer and current manager of Elmina Sharks as well as the proprietor of a school in Accra called Glow-Lamp International School.

During his career he played as a striker from 1990 until 2008 notably for Aston Villa, PSV Eindhoven, Coventry City and the Ghana national football team.

He is known foremost for his erratic career, in which he became a superstar as a teenager and then suffered a long string of failures which burnt him out well before his time.

Lamptey has been used as a byword for a cautionary tale of putting too much pressure on young players to be successful.

He also played for Anderlecht, Venezia, Boca Juniors, Unión Santa Fe, Ankaragücü, União Leiria, Greuther Fürth, Shandong Luneng, Al-Nassr, Asante Kotoko and Jomo Cosmos.

Nii Lamptey was born in Tema, but grew up in the two biggest Ghanaian cities, Accra and Kumasi.

He had a miserable childhood, as his parents abused and neglected him.

His father was an alcoholic who often beat and lashed him and sometimes burnt his body with cigarettes.

Lamptey often refused to spend the nights home and frequently skipped school, only finding refuge in football.

Soon, he began to excel in this sport, despite his father heckling him and hurling verbal abuse from the sidelines whenever he watched his son play football.

When Lamptey was eight, his parents divorced, and his stepfather threw him out of the household.

Lamptey found refuge in a Muslim football camp and converted from Christianity to Islam to qualify for entry.

When his stepfather found this out, he accused his stepson of sacrilege and often quarreled in front of the football camp.

Lamptey played for the youth team Young Corners in Accra, but wanted to move abroad to play.

However, the Ghanaian FA refused and confiscated his passport, wishing to build a team around him in Ghana.

He therefore was smuggled into Nigeria by a taxi driver, where he met Nigerian captain Stephen Keshi, who had heard of his skills.

Keshi persuaded Lamptey to play in Belgium with him, and took Lamptey with him, giving him a fake Nigerian passport that stated Lamptey was his son.

He was hailed as the new Pelé and age limit rules in Belgium were changed to allow him to debut at the age of 16 for Anderlecht.

His first season was a success, scoring 7 goals in 14 games.

He was loaned to Eindhoven, and quickly established himself as a prolific scorer, and continued to impress, scoring 10 times in 22 games.

Ron Atkinson brought Lamptey to Aston Villa in the summer of 1994.

This move came as a surprise, as PSV was a more successful club than Aston Villa at the time and Lamptey was one of the star players at PSV.

However, Lamptey had signed an exclusive marketing contract with an Italian player agent.

The player's agent, Antonio Caliendo, would get 25% of whatever Lamptey's transfer fee was, and accordingly sold him to Villa as that would mean the largest commission for himself.

Lamptey's illiteracy allowed Caliendo to take advantage of him, even pocketing a signing on bonus intended for Lamptey.

He failed to impress at Villa Park, scoring just three times, all of which came in the League Cup against Wigan Athletic (once in the home leg and twice in the away leg).

Following Atkinson's dismissal as Villa boss, he re-signed Lamptey for his new club Coventry City.

Again Lamptey would score his only goals in the League Cup, netting twice against Hull City (once in the home leg and once in the away leg).

However, despite his failure at Coventry, his name was not forgotten.

From the start of the 2012–13 season, a group of Coventry City fans launched a podcast entitled The Nii Lamptey Show in honour of their former player.

Lamptey joined Venezia in Italy.

Later, he was signed by Boca Juniors and went on loan at that same year at Unión de Santa Fe in Argentina.

There, he and his wife had their third child, Diego.

But soon, Diego died of a rare disease.

A major emotional blow was also the fact that Lamptey wanted to bury his son in Ghana, but the authorities declined.

Heartbroken, Lamptey temporarily gave up football.

After unsuccessful stints at Ankaragücü and União Leiria, Lamptey got himself a new German player agent who transferred him to SpVgg Greuther Fürth.

However, Lamptey and his wife were unhappy there, unable to live through the culture shock in Germany.

Lamptey was not entirely unsuccessful, being a reliable backup, but was found too fragile for the rough 2. Bundesliga.

He was also reportedly ignored by his German colleagues, and once, a colleague flat-out refused to sleep in the same hotel room as him.