Midfielder
Victor Wanyama
Club
Montreal
League
MLS
Region
USA
Signed
2020
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.
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
Listing
Historic Top 20
Archived as part of Kenya's historic professional export record.
See the Hall of Fame Top 20Either side of him in the archive
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