AFCON star with football's wildest nickname once played at empty Wembley

A former Premier League striker has caught everyone's attention at the Africa Cup of Nations thanks to his bizarre nickname.

The tournament started in the Ivory Coast on Saturday evening and we've already had some incredible stories.

Cameroon were held to a 1-1 draw against Gambia, while Ghana suffered a shock 2-1 defeat to Cape Verde.

To put that into context, Cape Verde's population (587,000) is lower than that of UK city Sheffield (600,000).

AFCON is a great place to watch future stars of tomorrow and reminisce about names from the past.

Mauritania took on Burkina Faso in their Group D opener on Tuesday afternoon, with supporters spotting an interesting name on the Mauritania team sheet.

Starting up front is a bloke named 'AK.47'. It's not a typo, that's exactly what's listed on @ActuFootAfrique's tweet.

The name ended up going viral on social media for obvious reasons. We don't need to list the gun puns. It's since emerged that it's Aboubakar Kamara, who played for Fulham between 2017 and 2021.

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Kamara helped Fulham earn promotion from the Championship in 2018 with a 1-0 win over Aston Villa at Wembley. The forward managed to score against Arsenal and Manchester United during his sole season in the top flight.

However, he also got on the wrong side of manager Claudio Ranieri.

During a 1-0 win over Huddersfield Town in December 2018, Kamara took the ball off Fulham talisman Aleksandar Mitrovic as he was about to take a penalty.

His teammates attempted to take the ball from him, but Kamara wasn't having it.

He ended up missing the penalty and Ranieri admitted he 'could've killed him' at full-time.

The usually soft-spoken Italian admitted: "I said to Aboubakar Kamara to leave the ball to Aleksandar Mitrovic, he is the man who shoots the penalties.

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"It is unbelievable, he did not respect me, the club, the team and the crowd. I spoke with him. It is not right.

"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 is it."

In 2019, Kamara was involved in another altercation with Mitrovic. Later that year, he was banned from all club activities after being arrested on suspicion of actual bodily harm at Fulham's Motspur Park training complex.

He'd spend the rest of the season on loan with Yeni Malatyaspor before making a return to Fulham.

Kamara left English football for good in 2021 to join Greek outfit Aris. He now plies his trade with Al Jazira in the United Arab Emirates.