#03
Midfielder
Victor Wanyama
Club
Southampton
League
Premier League
Region
England
Signed
2013
Highest transfer fee · July 2013
$19.0m / KSh 1.64bn
Transfer fee, Celtic to Southampton — £12.5m, then a record for a player sold by a Scottish club, at $1.52 to the pound and KSh 86.5 to the dollar.
Profile
Out of Kenya at seventeen
A destroyer of a holding midfielder who left Nairobi at seventeen and spent three seasons at Beerschot in Belgium, making 56 appearances and scoring twice.
Scotland — Celtic
Celtic signed him in 2011. Two Scottish Premiership titles and a Scottish Cup came in two seasons, along with 91 appearances and 13 goals — and a goal against Barcelona in the Champions League.
England — Southampton and Tottenham
Southampton bought him for a record fee in 2013 and gave him 97 appearances; Tottenham took him in 2016 for another 97, and a Champions League final in 2019.
North America, and the total
He finished with four seasons and 133 appearances at CF Montréal, winning the Canadian Championship in 2021, and a short spell at Dunfermline — 478 senior appearances and 32 goals in all.
Kenya
He captained his country for most of his 64 caps and scored seven international goals.
The Wanyama family
He is the younger brother of McDonald Mariga, and the two came out of Kenya's leading sporting family: their father Noah Wanyama played in midfield for AFC Leopards and for Kenya. Victor's siblings are Mariga, Heskey, Harry, Mercy, Cynthia and Patricia — Mercy played basketball for Kenya and professionally in Spain.
Their father, Noah Wanyama
Noah Wanyama gave AFC Leopards sixteen years as a midfielder, played for Kenya and later coached the club, having started out playing barefoot in Busia. He took his sons to training with him, where they carried his kit bag and played with the balls he brought home from the ground — the technical grounding both of them credit. The family lived in a shack in Muthurwa, and he ran a strict house to keep his children away from what was around them, banning boxing so no injury could cost them football. He says he never forced any of them into sport, only backed them once they chose it. It was Mariga, once he was established in Sweden, who opened the door for Victor at Helsingborgs IF in 2007.
Their mother, Mildred Wanyama
Mildred Ayiemba Osotsi Wanyama, born in 1959 in Ebusiralo, was the foundation of it. A netball player who became president of the Kenya Netball Association while working at Kenya Railways, and an ordained associate pastor at the Church of God, she is the reason Victor stayed in Europe: when he was homesick as a teenager and asked to come home, she told him to steel himself and see it through. She died on 14 June 2025 and was laid to rest in Soy, Uasin Gishu, in July that year.
Cup and continental record
The Scottish Cup with Celtic in 2013 and the Canadian Championship with CF Montréal in 2021. A UEFA Champions League final with Tottenham in 2019, and the group stages with Celtic, where his goal against Barcelona came.
Managers he played under
Neil Lennon signed him for Celtic; Mauricio Pochettino bought him twice, for Southampton and then Tottenham, and José Mourinho managed him in his final Spurs season. At CF Montréal he played under Thierry Henry and Wilfried Nancy.
After football
Coach in training, and founder of the Victor Wanyama Academy
Since retiring he has been taking his coaching badges — the UEFA B licence is done and he is preparing for the UEFA A, with a stated ambition to start coaching in Scotland at Celtic. His main project is the Victor Wanyama Academy in Nambale, Busia, built by the Wanyama Foundation with his brother McDonald Mariga and running age groups from Under-11 to Under-17, with a Nairobi operation alongside it. He sits on the FIFPRO Global Player Council, is an ambassador for the Chapa Dimba youth tournament, and works on financial literacy and investment education for athletes in Kenya.
Did you know
The first Kenyan to score in the Champions League — against Barcelona
November 2012, Celtic Park, and Wanyama headed Celtic in front against a Barcelona side of Messi, Xavi and Iniesta. Celtic won 2-1, and Wanyama became the first Kenyan ever to score in the Champions League. His brother had been the first to play in it two years earlier. Two brothers from the same Nairobi household hold both firsts.
1st
Kenyan to score in the Champions League
2-1
Celtic beat Barcelona, November 2012
2
Brothers holding Kenya's Champions League firsts
Did you know
He took a Kenyan company to the High Court over his own face — and won the argument
In 2019 he sued Menengai Oil Refineries in the High Court for using his image without permission. It was a small case in commercial terms and a large one in principle: it established, for Kenyan athletes, that a face and a name are property with a price, and that using them without a contract is actionable. Every image-rights deal a Kenyan player signs now sits on the back of somebody being willing to litigate first.
2019
The High Court image-rights case
Image rights
Established as property worth defending
Precedent
For every Kenyan athlete's endorsement since
Did you know
The retirement plan was drawn up in property, not in punditry
In May 2026 he became brand ambassador for Kings Developers, the Kenyan property firm behind projects including Nairobi's Hazina Towers, and framed the deal around financial literacy and holding assets rather than cash — a deliberate answer to the off-plan housing schemes that have taken money off Kenyan sportspeople for years. Alongside it he opened the Nairobi arm of his academy, kept building the Busia complex, and signed a two-year partnership to fund the development programmes.
May 2026
The property partnership announced
2 years
The funding partnership behind the academy
U11-U17
The age groups the academy runs
Career record
478 senior club appearances and 32 goals across Beerschot, Celtic, Southampton, Tottenham Hotspur, CF Montreal and Dunfermline Athletic. 64 caps and 7 goals for Kenya between 2007 and 2020. Retired from professional football in April 2026.
Career appearances and goals reconciled against Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Wanyama)
Firsts & milestones
- He is the first Kenyan to sign for an English Premier League club and the first to play in the competition, joining Southampton in 2013, and he later captained a Premier League side.
- He is the first Kenyan to score in the UEFA Champions League, heading Celtic in front against Barcelona at Celtic Park in November 2012.
- With Celtic he won the Scottish Premiership in 2012-13 and the Scottish Cup in 2013, the first Kenyan to win a Scottish league and cup double.
Appearances by competition
Career approximations compiled from Transfermarkt and club records
387
Appearances
27
Goals
0
Assists
64
Caps
7
Int'l goals
AI score breakdown
| Criterion | Score | Max |
|---|---|---|
| League Strength | 25 | 25 |
| Club Prestige | 20 | 20 |
| Titles Won (weighted) | 20 | 20 |
| Impact | 15 | 15 |
| Total | 80 | 80 |
Either side of him in the ranking
Ahead of him · Number 2
Behind him · Number 4
