Kofi Balmer (born 19 September 2000) is a Northern Irish professional footballer who plays as a

centre-back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

for club

Port Vale Port Vale Football Club are a professional football club based in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, England, which compete in . Vale are the only English Football League club not to be named after a place; their name being a reference to the valley o ...

, on loan from club Crystal Palace. He has won caps for Northern Ireland up to under-U21 level. Balmer made his debut in the

NIFL Premiership The NIFL Premiership, known as the Danske Bank Premiership for sponsorship purposes, and colloquially as the Irish League or Irish Premiership, is a professional association football league which operates as the highest division of the Northe ...

with

Ballymena United Ballymena United Football Club is a semi-professional football club from Northern Ireland. Based in Ballymena, County Antrim, the team competes in the NIFL Premiership and plays home matches at the Ballymena Showgrounds which is owned by the Mi ...

in April 2017, aged only 16. He spent just over four seasons with the club, playing on the losing side in the 2018

County Antrim Shield The County Antrim & District Football Association Senior Shield (more commonly known as the County Antrim Shield) is a football competition in Northern Ireland. The competition is open to senior teams who are members of the North East Ulster Foo ...

, 2018 Northern Ireland Football League Cup, and 2020

Irish Cup The Irish Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly referred to as the Irish Cup (currently known as the Samuel Gelston's Whiskey Irish Cup for sponsorship purposes) is the primary football knock-out cup competition in Northern Ireland. Ina ...

finals. He was named as Ulster Young Footballer of the Year for the 2018–19 season. He turned professional upon joining

Larne Larne (, , the name of a Gaelic Ireland, Gaelic territory) is a town on the east coast of County Antrim, Northern Ireland, with a population of 18,755 at the United Kingdom census, 2011, 2011 Census. It is a major passenger and freight Roll-on/ro ...

in 2021, and the following year would win the County Antrim Shield. He was sold to Crystal Palace in August 2022, from where he was

loan In finance, a loan is the lending of money by one or more individuals, organizations, or other entities to other individuals, organizations, etc. The recipient (i.e., the borrower) incurs a debt and is usually liable to pay interest on that d ...

ed out to Port Vale for the 2023–24 season.

Early life

Kofi Balmer was born on 19 September 2000 in

Newtownabbey Newtownabbey ( ) is a large settlement in North Belfast in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is separated from the rest of the city by Cavehill and Fortwilliam golf course. It surrounds Carnmoney Hill, and was formed from the merging of severa ...

. His parents named him

Kofi Kofi is an Akan masculine given name among the Akan people (such as the Ashanti and Fante) in Ghana that is given to a boy born on Friday. Traditionally in Ghana, a child would receive their Akan day name during their Outdooring, eight days aft ...

– a name traditionally given to a child born on a Friday by the

Akan people The Akan () people live primarily in present-day Ghana and Ivory Coast in West Africa. The Akan language (also known as ''Twi/Fante'') are a group of dialects within the Central Tano branch of the Potou–Tano subfamily of the Niger–Congo ...

– after Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, though there was no Ghanaian lineage in the family and he was born on a Tuesday.

Club career

Ballymena United

Balmer scored on his

debut for

on 29 April 2017, aged only 16, securing a 1–1 draw at

Coleraine Coleraine ( ; from ga, Cúil Rathain , 'nook of the ferns'Flanaghan, Deirdre & Laurence; ''Irish Place Names'', page 194. Gill & Macmillan, 2002. ) is a town and civil parish near the mouth of the River Bann in County Londonderry, Northern I ...

Manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities o ...

David Jeffrey David Jeffrey (born 28 October 1962) is a Northern Irish football manager and former player, who currently manages Ballymena United. He is best known for managing Linfield between 1997 and 2014. He began his professional playing career with t ...

described him as "an old head on young shoulders". He played 27 matches in the 2017–18 season, and also featured in the

defeat to Crusaders and in the Northern Ireland Football League Cup final defeat to

Dungannon Swifts Dungannon Swifts Football Club is a Northern Irish, semi-professional football club playing in the NIFL Premiership. The club, founded in 1949, has risen from the Mid-Ulster league to the top tier in Northern Ireland since its election to the ...

. He was named as Ulster Young Footballer of the Year in after featuring 28 times in the 2018–19 campaign. He played 24 games in the 2019–20 season, including four appearances in the qualifying rounds of the

UEFA Europa League The UEFA Europa League (abbreviated as UEL, or sometimes, UEFA EL), formerly the UEFA Cup, is an annual football club competition organised since 1971 by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European football clubs. It ...

. He also played in the 2020

defeat to

Glentoran Glentoran Football Club is a professional football club that plays in the NIFL Premiership. The club was founded in 1882. History Early history In 1914, Glentoran won the Vienna Cup, becoming the first United Kingdom team to win a European t ...

Windsor Park Windsor Park is a football stadium in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is the home ground of Linfield F.C. who own the land the stadium is built on, while the Irish Football Association own and operate the stadium and pay Linfield an annual rent ...

. A key member of the team who delivered decisive performances on a regular basis, he scored four goals in sixteen games in the

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

league campaign.

Larne

Balmer joined Premiership rivals

to become a full-time professional. During the 2021–22 season, he played 35 league games, and also played in four UEFA Europa Conference League qualifying matches, where Larne made it to the third round where they were knocked out by Portuguese Primeira Liga side

Paços de Ferreira Paços de Ferreira () is a city in the Porto District, in the north of Portugal. The population of the city in 2011 was 7491, while its municipality had 56,340 inhabitants, in an area of 70.99 km². Sometimes referred to as the ''Capital do ...

despite winning 1–0 at Inver Park. Larne also won the County Antrim Shield, beating league champions Linfield in the final; Balmer played in the 1–0 victory on 11 January, despite having to face his father's death the previous week. He signed a

contract A contract is a legally enforceable agreement between two or more parties that creates, defines, and governs mutual rights and obligations between them. A contract typically involves the transfer of goods, services, money, or a promise to tran ...

extension the following month.

Crystal Palace

On 11 August 2022, Balmer was signed to Crystal Palace for an undisclosed fee. Manager

Patrick Vieira Patrick Vieira (born 23 June 1976) is a French professional football manager and former player who is the manager of club Crystal Palace. He is widely considered as one of the greatest midfielders of his generation. Vieira began his career at ...

named him on the bench for three

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

games in October 2022. He featured 33 times for the under-21 side, including in the side's run to the Premier League International Cup final. On 15 July 2023, he joined League One side

for the 2023–24 season, having already played for manager Andy Crosby in his international career.

International career

Balmer is a youth international for Northern Ireland, having played with the under-19s and under-21s, captaining both sides. He was first called to the Northern Ireland senior team by

Ian Baraclough Ian Robert Baraclough (; born 4 December 1970) is an English football manager and former player who was most recently the manager of the Northern Ireland national team. He previously managed the Under-21 team. As a player, he was a defender fr ...

in September 2022.

Style of play

Playing mainly as a

, Balmer is also able to play on both sides, as a full-back or a wing-back. He is good on the ball and cool under pressure, with good leadership skills.

Career statistics

Honours

Ballymena United *

runner-up:

2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United ...

* Northern Ireland Football League Cup runner-up:

runner-up:

2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, COVID- ...

Larne *

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; 2022 Sri Lankan protests, Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretari ...

Individual *Ulster Young Footballer of the Year: 2018–19

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Balmer, Kofi 2000 births Living people People from Newtownabbey Association footballers from County Antrim Men's association footballers from Northern Ireland Northern Ireland men's youth international footballers Northern Ireland men's under-21 international footballers Men's association football defenders Ballymena United F.C. players Larne F.C. players Crystal Palace F.C. players Port Vale F.C. players NIFL Premiership players English Football League players