Former Cardiff and Ivory Coast soccer player Sol Bamba dies aged 39

ISTANBUL (AP) — Souleymane “Sol” Bamba, who played for Cardiff in the English Premier League, has died. He was 39.

Bamba was coaching at Turkish club Adanaspor, which said Saturday he had died in the city of Manisa. Bamba had been admitted to hospital ahead of his team’s away game there Friday.

“Our coach Souleymane Bamba was rushed to the Manisa Celal Bayar University Hospital after falling ill before yesterday’s match against the Manisa Football Club. There, he unfortunately passed. We wish condolences to his family our whole community,” Adanaspor said on Twitter on Saturday.

Club president Asil Bostanci said that Bamba had been rushed to hospital Friday morning with a fever, in comments reported by the state-run Anadolu news agency.

“We just suffered a great tragedy. This was completely unexpected. Before everything else, he was a person who’s heart was full of football, who loved football, who was a very good person,” Bostanci said. “We had other plans, we had other long-term projects coming up. This story should not have ended this way.”

Bamba began his career at Paris Saint-Germain before playing in the Scottish, English, Turkish and Italian leagues. Bamba also played 46 times for the Ivory Coast.

He played five seasons for Cardiff and was crucial in the Welsh club’s most recent Premier League season in 2018-19. Bamba was also the club’s assistant manager for part of the 2022-23 season.

“I can’t believe I won’t see that beaming smile again,” Neil Warnock, Bamba’s manager at Cardiff in 2018-19, wrote on X. “I’m so happy that Sol was part of my life and we had such brilliant memories together.”

During his playing career, Bamba underwent treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a form of cancer, before returning to the field in 2021 with Middlesbrough.

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