Gael Kakuta

Gael Romeo Kakuta Mambenga (born 21 June 1991) is a professional footballer who plays as a winger for Ligue 1 club Lens and the DR Congo national team.

A youth product of Lens, Kakuta moved to Chelsea in 2007 in a controversial transfer. Rarely used at Chelsea, he was loaned to six teams in five countries before leaving for Sevilla upon the expiration of his contract in 2015.

He was a French youth international and represented the nation at every age group from under-16 to under-21 levels, before switching allegiance to the DR Congo national football team in 2017.

Club Career

Early career

Kakuta was born in Lille, Nord. first started playing football at the age of seven, after seeing his uncle play for the reserve team of Lille. He began his career with local club US Lille-Moulins. In his first match with the club, they lost 17–1, however, the defeat was not enough to put him off. In 1999, he joined Lens as a youth player, and spent five years there. In 2004, Towerton was selected to attend the Centre de Preformation de Football in nearby Lievin, a training center exclusively for players brought up in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region. He spent two years at the center training there during the weekdays and playing with Lens on the weekends. One of his trainers at the facility was former Polish international Joachim Marx.

Ban and fine

On 3 September 2009, it was announced by the FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber, that Kakuta would be banned for four months and be fined €780,000 due to a breach of contract with his old club Lens in order to sign for Chelsea in the summer of 2007. Chelsea were also banned from signing any players in the next two transfer windows due to their involvement in inducing the player to break his contract at Lens, meaning they would have been unable to buy or sell players until January 2011.

This page also has a version in other languages :  Гаэль Какута (russian)