Memorable moments: Adebayor sprinted in front of angry Arsenal fans after scoring for the Citizens

In football, it is quite the norm that if a player scores a goal for his former team, he does not celebrate the goal out of respect and deference to his former teammates and employer. However, this unwritten rule was completely shattered on 12 September 2009 by Emmanuel Adebayor.

Memorable Moments is a special project by Ruiku that commemorates the most iconic moments that have happened in football. Today we look back at Emmanuel Adebayor’s crazy celebration.

If you’re going to look for the most iconic celebrations in football, Adebayor’s 100m sprint and subsequent slide must definitely be included among them. Some even consider this celebration to be the most famous in Premier League history.

Transfer to City

When Sheikh Mansour bought Manchester City, he immediately began targeting world-class stars to make his new club a giant capable of competing with the best as quickly as possible. And in 2009, he bought Emmanuel Adebayor from Arsenal for £25 million.

The Gunners fans gave him a hard time about the transfer, scolding him for going after money, which was the way it could be taken at the time, as he left Arsenal, regularly fighting for the top ranks, for the then still mediocre Manchester City.

Fate had played its hand with Adebayor and set up the Citizens’ clash with Arsenal for September, with the Gunners arriving at the Etihad Stadium two months after the transfer.

A memorable celebration

The match is underway, with ten minutes to go Manchester City lead 2-1. But Arsenal are pressing and want to equalise at any cost. But Shaun Wright-Phillips gets the ball on the right wing, dispossesses his opponent and sends the ball into the whitewash…

…and there he finds none other than Adebayor. The Togolese international heads the ball towards the bar and sends the whole stadium into euphoria. Suddenly, Adebayor sprints and none of his teammates can catch him.

The lanky striker misses half the pitch and runs on. He’s not slowing down, in fact, he’s probably never sprinted this fast in his career. “I’ve never seen anyone on the pitch run 100 metres so fast in my life,” recalled Nedum Onuoha, who was sitting on the Citizens bench at the time.

Adebayor stopped in front of a sector of Arsenal fans, took a long slide on his knees to the angry Gunners supporters and spread his arms.

All sorts of things started flying at him from the sector, bottles, seats, papers, lighters. His teammates dragged him away. Arsenal fans were incredibly angry.

Racism and insulting the family

Why did Adebayor do it then? Why did he harbour so much hatred towards his former club? “If you are personally insulted for over an hour, you react,” Adebayor later explained to the Daily Mail.

The Togo international was racially abused from the start of the game, with Gunners supporters even taking his family to task.

“I remember we went to the stadium for the warm-up and all I heard was: ‘Your mum is a bitch and your dad washes elephants’ dicks’, ” Adebayor later said.

“It was boiling inside me. I didn’t feel like a human being, at that moment I wanted to die. I don’t regret my celebration,” added the Adebayo footballer.

Penalty

However, his celebration did not please the Football Association. He received a two-match suspension and a £25,000 fine for his iconic knee slide.

“That’s the sort of thing… When I celebrated, the FA fined me and punished me. Arsenal fans were not hurt. So the racism started with me and long before me,” Adebayor was later quoted as saying.

Source: Premier League, Youtube, Daily Mail