Richard Kingson

Turkey

Kingson left his native Accra in 1996 to pursue a career in Turkey, where he represented six different clubs, and became a naturalised citizen, taking a Turkish name, Faruk Gürsoy, coming from Faruk Süren and Ergun Gürsoy. His first club in Turkey was Galatasaray S.K., whom he signed for in December 1996 but did not play a single game. On 2004–05 season when he played with Galatasaray again, he was suspended from football for six months after a failed doping test.

Birmingham City

After a three-month period on loan to Swedish club Hammarby IF, he drew attention from other clubs in Europe, including Aalborg, Maccabi Tel Aviv and Birmingham City, eventually joining the latter. On 28 August 2007, Kingson made his debut for Birmingham in a League Cup third round tie against Hereford United. He played once in the Premier League, in a 2–0 defeat to Portsmouth in caretaker manager Eric Black's only game in charge. At the end of the season, co-owner David Sullivan blamed the club's relegation on the quality of previous manager Steve Bruce's signings, branding Kingson a "complete waste of space". Kingson was disappointed and angered by the perceived unfairness of Sullivan's reaction, saying that "an older person, in his position, has to speak maturely. He has to be a responsible man as co-owner to speak well and set an example to younger people." The player's contract, which still had one year to run, was cancelled by mutual consent at the end of the 2007–08…

Kingson was the starting goalkeeper of the Ghana national team, and was called up for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations and the 2010 FIFA World Cup. During the 2006 World Cup, the Ghana Football Association misspelled that his name is Kingston; however, the player's shirt used the correct spelling of his name, as confirmed by Kingson himself. He was voted as an All-Star Goalkeeper during the 2008 African Cup of Nations Tournament in Ghana. The Team of the Tournament was decided by the Technical Study Group (TSG) after careful observations of all the tournament's matches. In 2008, he scored a goal for Ghana in a friendly – a late equaliser in a 1–1 draw against Tanzania. As first-choice goalkeeper and team captain he was instrumental in leading Ghana to the final of the 2010 tournament, and was again selected for the all-star team along with Egypt goalkeeper Essam El-Hadary. In the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, Kingson was selected in Ghana's opening game against Serbia, who had Vladimir Stojković, Kingson's fellow goalkeeper at Wigan Athletic in goal on the other side, keeping a clean sheet in The Black Stars 1–0 victory. In his next game he made a mistake in the 11th minute to give the lead to Australia in a group game which finished 1–1. His final group game ended in a narrow 1–0 defeat to Germany, but the team still qualified for the knock-out stages. In the match of 16 versus USA, he was voted Turkish Airlines Top of the Match after making several…

After Kingson retired, he went into coaching. In May 2017, he was appointed as the goal keeper's coach for the Ghana national football team. In 2019, he was relieved of duties along with the whole technical team. After a reshuffle of the technical national teams, he was appointed as the goal keeper's coach of the Ghana A' national football team in June 2021. Kingson also served as goal keeper's coach for his former club Accra Great Olympics in January 2021, when Yaw Preko served as the interim head coach. The following month, he joined Accra Hearts of Oak to serve in that same capacity for an interim period. On 4 August 2021, he was reassigned to the Ghana national team as the goal keeper's coach.

Kingson is the brother of Laryea Kingston, who was also a member of the Ghana national team. He is a naturalised citizen of Turkey and his Turkish name is Faruk Gürsoy. Kingson is married to Adelaide Tawiah. The ceremony took place in Ghana. Kingson's national teammates Asamoah Gyan and John Paintsil were among the guests at the wedding. In 2012 a controversy arose when Kingson's wife during a prayer deliverance at the Synagogue Church of All Nations Church of T. B. Joshua in Nigeria confessed that she had used spirits to destroy Kingson's career and rendered him impotent. Kingson defended his wife by saying that it was not she who spoke but a spirit that spoke through her.