Ever since foreign players were allowed to play in England, Africa has been a fertile ground for talent and skill in football. There are currently 46 players playing in the league registered under an African nation.

That means when you bet on premier at 10bet, every match fixture you see has at least one African player in it. There are only four clubs in the English Premier League that do not have an African player. The number of clubs with African born players will probably increase to the full 20 teams given the value of African born players.

Those who have moved from the continent to England and have been successful are an inspiration to the youth and show that anything is possible. Just like when you bet on EPL, anything can happen and quite often it does.

The first African to ever feature in the English Premier League was Peter Ndlovu, a Zimbabwean national who was a striker from 1988 till 2011. He played for Coventry City and Birmingham City, and Sheffield United. He is now the team manager for Mamelodi Sundowns in South Africa.

Back in Cameroon, the country has exported some of the best players globally, and they have made their country proud in the clubs they have played for. Here are but a few:

Samuel Eto’o

Who better kick off the list than our newly elected Football Association president. This man has had an illustrious career. 

He has won three champions league titles with Barcelona and Internazionale. In 2000, he signed a $6.3 million contract with Spanish club Mallorca. After moving to Barcelona in 2005, he continued to make waves with his stellar performance and helped the team win the 2006 Champions League.

In 2011 he was transferred to Russian team Anzhi Makhachkala but was back at Chelsea in 2013.

He retired from play in 2014.

Joel Matip

Even though this centre-back was born and raised in Germany, his father is a footballer from Cameroon. He has been with Liverpool since 2016. Before that, he was with Schalke 04 and the team when they won the DFL-Supercup in 2011.

He played for Cameroon in the 2010 African Cup of Nations and FIFA World Cups of 2010 and 2014. In 2014 he retired from playing international football but did not follow the correct procedure of writing a letter. When he was called up for the 2017 AFCON, only then did the Cameroonian Football Association find out he was no longer available.

His antics and facial expressions on-field have made him a social media trend as his face is often used to make memes. 

Geremi Njitap Fotso

Geremi is a former player from West Cameroon whose debut was in a match against Gabon in 1996. He played in the matches for the 1998 FIFA World Cup qualifiers but was not part of the final squad.

Geremi played in Turkey for two seasons from 1997, and he then moved to the Spanish side of Real Madrid. 

In 2003 Chelsea paid 6.9 million pounds for him, and he had an excellent run at Chelsea mainly because he was a versatile player. At Chelsea, the club won the Premier League in 2004/5 and 2005/6.

In 2007, Newcastle signed him for a three-year contract; he made 27 appearances for his club.

He is now retired and is a football manager whose goal is to become one of the top managers in football.

Laureano Bisan Etame-Mayer

Better known as Lauren, he was born in Cameroon and raised in Spain, and he is the penultimate of 22 siblings. His fathers had many wives; they rented out two flats to accommodate them when they lived in Seville. 

He went to play for Cameroon without ever being in the country before, not knowing the country or the language. He was already playing for Arsenal at the time and was making strides as a full-back, a position that initially wasn’t his first choice.

He is now retired and an Ambassador for Arsenal. 

In Closing

As a continent, we pride ourselves on the immense talent we have in football players, but the time is coming when we need to keep that talent within the countries football confederations. One of the things we need to do is to remove politics from football and root out corruption that causes funds to be misspent. 

Until then, we will continue to export our mineral resources and our young skills and talents.