* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 17 March 2024 (UTC) ‡ National team caps and goals correct as of 26 March 2024 (UTC)
André Morgan Rami Ayew (/ˈɑːjuː/(listen); born 17 December 1989), also known as Dede Ayew in Ghana,[3][4][5] is a professional footballer who plays as a winger or forward for Ligue 1 club Le Havre and serves as captain for the Ghana national team.[6] A miracle-worker with the ball. He is a fast and aggressive midfielder. Confident in setting up the maneuver and skilled finisher. With Ghana he played as an attacking midfielder on the left and in the centre. In 2010 he was included in the list of the best footballers born after 1989 drawn up by Don Balón. Regarded to be one of the best wingers of all time.
Club career
He began his career at the age of ten with FC Nania Accra in Ghana. However, he had already played in the U-9 youth team of TSV 1860 Munich between 1996 and 1998, where his father was in the professional squad at the time. After four years with the Ghanaian club's youth academy, he was promoted to the club's first team coached by his father. After two more professional years with Nania, during which he also played for the juniors, he returned to France to play for Olympique Marseille, the club where his father celebrated his greatest successes. There he first played in the club's U17 team, scored eleven goals in his first season and trained with the first team alongside Salomon Olembé, Habib Beye and Bixente Lizarazu. In May 2007, he signed a three-year professional contract and became an integral part of Marseille's Ligue 1 team. He played his first professional game on Matchday 3 of the 2007–08 season on 15 August in a 2–1 defeat against Valenciennes, when he came on as a substitute for Modeste M'Bami in the 89th minute. A little later, he made his debut in the Champions League on 24 October 2007 in a home game against Portuguese champions FC Porto. In his first season, Ayew made a total of 13 appearances in the league, cup and Champions League.
For the 2008–09 season, Ayew was loaned to league rivals FC Lorient, where he was used by coach Christian Gourcuff in attack alongside Fabrice Abriel, Kevin Gameiro and Rafik Saïfi and made his first appearance on 16 August 2008 in the game against FC Lyon. A month later, he scored his first professional goal with the 1-0 opening goal against FC Sochaux. Nevertheless, he was only considered as a substitute player in the following period. He finished the season with 22 league games, in which he scored three goals, and returned to Marseille on 30 June 2009.
Since he was not considered by the new coach Didier Deschamps in Marseille, Ligue 2 newcomers AC Arles-Avignon signed him on 31 August 2009 for a season on loan. With Arles-Avignon, Ayew, who was used there on the right wing, achieved promotion to Ligue 1. He made 25 league appearances and scored four goals in the entire season.
After the successful season at AC Arles-Avignon, Ayew returned to Marseille. After it was initially speculated that he would leave the club, he extended his contract until 2014 in August. In the 2010/11 season, Ayew was able to establish himself at Marseille and was used 18 times in the first half of the season, 16 of which he was in the starting eleven.
In the summer of 2015, Ayew announced his free transfer to Premier League club Swansea City. After convincing performances at Swansea City, he moved to West Ham United for the 2016–17 season. After failing to make his mark at the top-flight club as hoped, Ayew returned to Swansea City in January 2018. With Swansea, he was relegated from the 2017–18 Premier League at the end of the season and spent the following season with Turkish first division club Fenerbahçe Istanbul. After returning to Wales, the striker regained his marksmanship and scored fifteen and sixteen league goals in 2019/20 and 2020/21 respectively. Swansea reached the promotion play-offs in each case. After being eliminated in the semi-finals in the first year, the club only lost 2-0 to Brentford in the final of the 2020/21 EFL Championship and thus missed out on a return to the Premier League.
After a year and a half with Qatari club al-Sadd Sports Club, André Ayew signed a contract with English top-flight club Nottingham Forest until the end of the season at the beginning of February 2023. In Nottingham, he will meet coach Steve Cooper, under whom he had already played successfully at Swansea from 2019 to 2021. Since November 2023, he has been playing for French top-flight club Le Havre AC with a three-month break.
International career
Due to his dual citizenship, André Dede Ayew could have played internationally for both France and Ghana. He initially chose France and played once for the France U18 national team before having to cancel four more call-ups due to injuries. In the men's game, he chose Ghana because of his father's origins, although he was also courted by the French federation. In August 2007, Ghana coach Claude Le Roy called him up to the senior squad for the friendly against Senegal. He came on as a substitute towards the end of the game, which took place at London's New Den Stadium, making his first international appearance. In the following months, he was gradually integrated into the Ghanaian national team, which is preparing for the African Cup of Nations at the beginning of 2008. Ayew finally made the leap into the 23-man national squad and took part in four of the six games. In the semi-finals of the tournament, he was in the starting line-up in the 1-0 defeat against Cameroon. In the end, he finished third with Ghana.
Under the new national coach Milovan Rajevac, Ayew was initially given little consideration. This changed after his excellent performances at the Junior World Championship in Egypt in autumn 2009, where Ghana won the title for the first time. As a result, André Dede Ayew was also back in action for the senior national team. He took part in the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations, where Ghana lost 1–0 to Egypt in the final, and Ayew played in all five matches and scored once. In May 2010, he was called up to Ghana's squad for the World Cup in South Africa. Ghana survived the preliminary round and beat the USA in the round of 16, with Ayew setting up Ghana's decisive 2-1 winning goal and being named Man of the Match. In the quarter-finals, in which Dede Ayew was unable to play due to a yellow suspension, Ghana lost on penalties to Uruguay and were eliminated. He was voted the second-best young player of the 2010 World Cup behind the German Thomas Müller.
On 13 May 2014, he was called up to the Ghana national football team squad for the 2014 World Cup and scored one goal each in the group stage against the USA and Germany. Ghana finished bottom of the group with one point.
At the Africa Cup of Nations in 2015, 2017 and 2019, Ayew was part of the Ghanaian squad.
