Three consecutive African Footballer of the Year awards. A European Cup. A nickname borrowed from Brazil's greatest. Abedi Ayew, Abedi Pele, is the greatest Ghanaian footballer who ever lived, and the story of how a boy from Dome in Greater Accra became one of the finest players in the history of the sport deserves to be told properly.
Abedi Pele
Three-time African Footballer of the Year. Champions League winner with Marseille, 1993. Read full profile →
The early years
Born in 1964 in Dome, Greater Accra, Abedi Ayew showed ability from the start. He began his career in Ghana before making the move to Europe, first to Switzerland, then to France, where he would eventually become one of the most celebrated players in Ligue 1 history.
Marseille and the Champions League
The peak of his club career came at Olympique de Marseille under Raymond Goethals. In the 1992-93 season, Abedi was part of the Marseille side that won the European Cup, beating AC Milan 1-0 in the final in Munich. It was the first and still only time a French club has won the trophy. He was not a peripheral figure: he was one of the central creative forces in a team that also included Didier Deschamps and Rudi Völler.
He had previously played alongside Diego Maradona at the club, a fact that says everything about the level at which he was operating.
The African record
Three consecutive CAF African Footballer of the Year awards, 1991, 1992 and 1993, is a feat that only Didier Drogba (twice), Samuel Eto'o (four times, not consecutive) and a handful of others have matched in the award's history. No other Ghanaian has come close. His influence on the continent was so great that his nickname, Pele, given by the Ghanaian press after the Brazilian legend, became the name everyone knew him by.
His legacy
Both his sons, Jordan and Andre, have played professionally in Europe and represented Ghana internationally. Jordan is the current Black Stars captain. The family is the closest thing Ghanaian football has to a dynasty.
When people talk about what Ghana can produce, what the country's football tradition is actually capable of, they still start with Abedi Pele. Thirty years after his peak, that has not changed.
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