Patrick Bantamoi

Bantamoi was born and raised in Bo, in the southern region of Sierra Leone. Discovered while playing in a local street football tournament in Bo in 2002, he was soon aggregated to the national under-17 squad. The following year, he took part in the FIFA U-17 World Championship in Finland: however, shortly before the representative flew back to Sierra Leone, Bantamoi and several other players, including future senior international Medo Kamara, escaped from their accommodation and defected. Both Bantamoi and Kamara were between the players who successfully applied for political asylum (and, later on, were granted Finnish citizenship), although they had to wait until their 18th birthday to become eligible to play professional football. Once he turned 18, Bantamoi signed his first professional contract with Finnish club KuPS, playing in the second tier of the local football system: the Ykkönen. Although he was mainly a reserve during his first stances in Kuopio, in 2004 the team immediately won promotion to Finnish top tier Veikkausliiga, while in the following season they finished 10th out of 14 teams, being 12 points over the relegation zone. On 31 July 2005, the Sierra Leonean made his debut in the top-flight league, playing in a goalless away draw against Tampere United. Between 2005 and 2006 (also the year he and Kamara played together once more), Bantamoi established himself as the starting goalkeeper and was soon considered to be one of the league's best players in his…

In 2003, Bantamoi was chosen as the first-choice goalkeeper for Sierra Leone's under-17 squad both at the African U-17 Championship in Swaziland, where the Leone Stars achieved their best result ever by reaching the final (eventually lost to Cameroon), and the FIFA U-17 World Championship in Finland, where they finished last in their group, having collected just one point from a 3-3 draw against Spain, and were consequently eliminated from the tournament. Despite being eligible both for Sierra Leone and Finland (having obtained its citizenship), Bantamoi never won a senior international cap, neither with the former country, nor with the latter. However, he received a call-up for the Leone Stars in 2014, when he featured on the bench in both the matches against Cameroon (on 10 and 15 October, respectively), regarding the qualification round to the 2015 African Cup of Nations in Equatorial Guinea.

In 2009, according to the local nationality laws, Bantamoi was granted Finnish citizenship, and later became part of the national association for footballers. Throughout the years, he supported the poor and the underprivileged kids and adolescents in Sierra Leone by sending essential football equipment (including balls, goalkeeping gloves, jerseys and shoes) to some local academies and centers. For these efforts, in 2020 he was nominated for the FIFPro Merit Awards, three special prizes assigned to the footballers who distinguished themselves the most for their impact out of the playing field and their activism.

KuPS

Finnish League Cup: 2006 Inter Turku

Veikkausliiga: 2008 Finnish League Cup: 2008 Finnish League Cup runners-up: 2007 Individual

Finnish League Cup Best Player: 2006 Finnish All Star Game Best Player (unofficial): 2007 Veikkausliiga Goalkeeper of the Year: 2008