Profile of Celestine Babayaro on Famous Like Me

Celestine Babayaro (born August 29, 1978 in Kaduna, Nigeria) is a football footballer who plays left-back currently contracted to Newcastle United in the English Premiership.

Babayaro began his playing career at Belgian team, Anderlecht in 1994 and made a name for himself through his performances for Nigeria in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

He was purchased by Chelsea in April 1997 for £2.25m million - a club record paid for a teenager at the time. During his time there, the team won the FA Cup and Charity Shield in 2000, and reached the FA Cup finals in 2002. He faced competition from Graeme Le Saux during his seven-year spell in SW6, but played over 200 games for Chelsea. His acrobatic celebrations were a highlight and loved by the Stamford Bridge faithful. He scored some good goals for Chelsea, his last coming away to Leicester in the 2003/2004 season. The signing of Wayne Bridge saw Celestine start only four Premier League games for Chelsea in 2004/2005 - their Premiership winning year.

He played briefly for Nigeria in the 2002 World Cup, before quitting international football aged 23. He also made a brief comeback appearance for his country in the 2004 African Nations Cup in Tunisia, but was sent home along with Portsmouth F.C. striker, Aiyegbeni Yakubu for "indiscipline".

Babayaro then moved to Newcastle United in January 2005 on a free transfer. He started the first five games of Newcastle's Premier League season.

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Celestine Babayaro