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Here’s the Irons stats on African players

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The Daily Mail has followed up its explosive Tony Henry E-mail story by publishing details of the regions from which Premier League clubs buy their players.

Henry  sparked a race row by allegedly admitting  the club did not want to sign any more African players because ‘they can cause mayhem’.

Yet the record shows that the Hammers are in joint second place with Arsenal, Liverpool, Newcastle United having signed 15 from the continent since 1992 and currently have seven on their books.

Tottenham Hotspur have signed the largest number at 19.

A quick Google shows that the players who have joined us since the arrival of the PL are:

Marc Vivien Foe, Alex Song, Rigobert Song (all Cameroon), Herita Ilunga (DR Congo), Mido (Egypt), John Pantsil (Ghana), Titi Camara, Kaba Diawara (both Guinea), Guy Demel (Ivory Coast), Frederick Kanoute, Modibo Maiga (both Mali), Marouane Chamakh, Manuel de Costa (both Morocco), Emmanuel Emenike, Victor Moses, Victor Obinna (all Nigeria), Demba Ba, Henri Camara, Mo Diame, Cheikhou Kouyate, Diafra Sakho (all Senegal), Benni McCarthy (South Africa).

Let us know if Gooogle have missed any!

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Hugh Southon is a lifelong Iron and the founding editor of ClaretandHugh. He is a national newspaper journalist of many years experience and was Bobby Moore's 'ghost' writer during the great man's lifetime. He describes ClaretandHugh as "the Hammers daily newspaper!"

Follow on Twitter @hughsouthon

9 comments

  • EvanEvans says:

    I’d have to question your stats there. Midi is classified as a footballer. Really. I can’t take this seriously.😘🤔

  • anironhammer says:

    Masuaku (DR Congo), Ayew (Ghana), Abou (Ivory Coast)
    Payet was born in Reunion (a small island off Madagascar)

    • anironhammer says:

      Ogbonna could have represented Nigeria and Obiang can still play for Equatorial Guinea

  • Mary Millingtons Ghost says:

    Slimani (Algeria).
    Oh no, wait….

  • RickinJHB says:

    Let’s be honest the biggest problem with signing African players is that you lose them every two years to play n the AFCON if their home country qualifies. I wonder if that gets taken into considerations by the clubs?
    To paint all of them with the Sakho brush is an extremely stupid thing to do if it turns out to be true.
    I am sure there’s also two sides to the Sakho story also not just he kept pushing for a new deal which I dont blame hime considering he was earning less than half of other players and in my opinioin was still our best striker.

    • dusty miller says:

      THERE ARE TALKS ABOUT MOVING THE TOURNAMENT TO THE SPRING AND SUMMER MONTHS WHICH WILL STOP HOME CLUBS FOR USING THIS, TO NOT SIGN AFRICAN PLAYERS

  • West Ham Fan No 32 says:

    I think when you go through that list and take out the Sully punts you have a list of pretty decent players Savio Nsereko not there or did I miss him like most clubs he has ever been at 😉

  • zahama says:

    I remember reading an interview with Cheikou just after he joined in which he praised people like BFS, Kevin Nolan and Nobes for making him feel welcome – he even paid Nobes the ultimate compliment of calling him an African

    While players are paid vast sums of money they are also human beings who need to be made to feel welcome – I’ll be interested to see how Moyes deals with this in his presser this afternoon

  • Hammer64 says:

    Reckon it will be an ‘unable to comment, the situation is under investigation’. Probably the best approach at this stage.

    32- I might have imagined this but didn’t Nsereko have German citizenship? His whole career has been a bit of a mystery but I thought there was something like that going on. Either way the poor chap could not play football!

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