The AFCON has kicked off, and one name caught all the attention on the teamsheet yesterday, AK 47. Fans marvelled at the inclusion of the name in Mauritania’s teamsheet, and the fact that they decided to announce it in a bizarre way made it even funnier. The team narrowly lost but still managed to make headlines.
Mauritania announced their teamsheet to face Burkina Faso yesterday and decided to announce former Fulham striker Aboubakar Kamara as AK 47. This got fans wondering who this man was, especially when the Fulham official account on Twitter directly replied to a fan about their former player.
Who is AK 47?
“You don’t know ball if you don’t know Abou Kamara.” This was Fulham’s response to those asking who AK 47 was after appearing with a bizarre name on his country’s teamsheet before their AFCON game against Burkina Faso. Kamara played for Fulham between 2017 and 2021, helping them regain promotion in 2018 to the Premier League.
The France-born forward broke out from the Monaco youth setup but only managed a few competitive games with the first team. He joined Kotrijik after leaving Monaco in 2015 and managed less than 20 games for them before returning to France to join Amiens.
Kamara played in France for another year when Fulham came calling in 2017. Upon signing for Fulham, Abou Kamara opted for shirt number 47, so when you add his initials to his shirt number, you’d have AK 47.
AK 47 helped Fulham regain promotion to the Premier League in 2018 and even scored important goals for the club against Leicester City and Manchester United in the top flight.
Kamara’s Fulham stint came to an end in 2021 after several disciplinary issues with the club, and he has since played for several clubs, including Yeni Malatyaspor, Dijon in France, Aris in Greece, Olympiacos, and Al-Jazira in the UAE, where he currently plays.
Why was Kamara banned by Fulham?
Aboubakar Kamara wasn’t the easiest of characters to deal with, and Claudio Ranieri eventually got tired of his antics, which spelled the end of his Fulham career, but not after he was arrested on suspicion of criminal damage and bodily harm in a suspected altercation with Mitrovic.
It all started when Fulham won a penalty in a Premier League game against Huddersfield Town. Kamara started an argument with regular taker Mitrovic over who should take the penalty, something all the Fulham players around him protested.
Kamara eventually won the argument and lost the penalty, something that didn’t go well with club manager Claudio Ranieri.
“I told Aboubakar Kamara to leave the ball to Mitrovic; he is the man who shoots the penalties. It is unbelievable, he did not respect me, the club, the team, and the crowd. I spoke with him. It’s not right,” Ranieri said angrily.
“I wanted to kill him, that is normal when one man takes a ball, only because he scored the last penalty. It should be Mitrovic; that’s it,” the legendary title-winning manager with Leicester City said.
The AFCON drama continues after Chris Hughton was attacked in the wake of Ghana’s defeat in their opening game of the tournament.
