Léon Mokuna

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Léon Mokuna
Personal information
Full name Léon Mukuna Mutombo
Date of birth (1928-11-01)1 November 1928
Place of birth Léopoldville, Belgian Congo
(modern-day Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Date of death 28 January 2020(2020-01-28) (aged 91)
Place of death Ghent, Belgium
Height 1.75 m (5 ft 9 in)[1]
Position(s) Forward[1]
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1954 Victoria Club
1954–1957 Sporting Lisbon 13 (19)
1957 Victoria Club
1957–1961 Gent
1961–1966
SV Waregem
International career
1959 Belgium B 2 (1)
Managerial career
1965 DR Congo
1966–1967 TP Engelbert
1968–1970 DR Congo
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Léon Mokuna Mutombo (1 November 1928 – 28 January 2020),

SV Waregem between 1954 and 1966. He was among the first Africans to play professionally in Belgium, and may have been the first Congolese player in a European side. His role has been described as "pioneering" by BBC Sport.[3][4]

Early life

Léon Mokuna was born in

Léopoldville, Belgian Congo[1] in 1928 and grew up in Léopoldville (now Kinshasa) where he became a protégé of the football-promoting Scheutist missionary Raphaël de la Kethulle de Ryhove, known as "Tata Raphaël". Playing football in Léopoldville, Mokuna gained the French nickname Le Trouet or Trouet ("little hole", phonetically derived from troué! or "holed!") for reputedly having scoring a goal with such force that it snapped the net. He retained it throughout his playing career.[3]

Football career

Mokuna was originally talent-spotted by Sporting Lisbon which visited Léopoldville in 1954 during a tour of neighbouring Portuguese Angola. He moved to Portugal to play for Sporting from January 1955 and finished the season with 19 goals in 11 games. However, he remained with the team for only two seasons after being "ostracised" before returning to the Congo to play for Victoria Club (today AS Vita Club) at Léopoldville.[3]

In 1957, Mokuna left the Congo for Belgium to play for

KAA Gent ("La Gantoise") where he was twice the team's top goalscorer (1959 and 1960) and became "a club icon".[3] At the time, it was widely assumed that Mokuna was the first African to play for a Belgian team and the first Congolese player in a European club. He certainly pre-empted the so-called Belgicains who arrived from the Congo to play at Belgian clubs after 1959. However, a mixed-race player Louis Cousin (1912–89) had played for Daring Brussels during the 1930s and is now thought to hold the title.[5]

Mokuna played twice for the

KV Kortrijk where he immediately suffered a double fracture to his leg that ended his playing career.[3]
He gained Belgian nationality in 1959.

After

Cote d'Ivoire and was eliminated.[3]
He also managed the Congolese national team from 1968 to 1970.

Later life

Mokuna returned to the Congo (later Zaire) after the end of his Belgian football career and worked in business.[3] However, his property was later confiscated by the regime of Mobutu Sese Seko.

He remained in Ghent until his death at age 91 on 28 January 2020.[5] Mokuna is the grandfather of the Belgian footballer David Mukuna-Trouet, born in 2001.[6]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Léon Mokuna at WorldFootball.net
  2. ^ Le ballon ronde
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Gleeson, Mark (29 January 2020). "Pioneering DR Congo forward Leon Mokuna dies aged 90". BBC Sport. Retrieved 31 January 2020.
  4. ^ "Voetbalclubs eren Léon Mokuna". Het Nieuwsblad. GHL/ABG. 5 November 2010. Retrieved 31 January 2020.
  5. ^ a b "Léon Mokuna (91), een van eerste zwarte voetballers in België, overleden". Radio 2. 28 January 2020. Retrieved 31 January 2020.
  6. ^ "Kleinzoon van Gent-legende tekent bij Beerschot". Gazet van Antwerpen.

Further reading

  • Cleveland, Todd (2017). Following the Ball: The Migration of African Soccer Players Across the Portuguese Colonial Empire, 1949-1975. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press.
    ISBN 978-0-89680-314-5
    .
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