Kemal Ademi

Kemal Ademi — Biography

Kemal Ademi, born on 23 January 1996 in Villingen-Schwenningen in Germany, is a footballer who plays as a centre-forward, and at 1.97 m is a physical presence in the box. Sources describe his nationality differently: the English, French, Persian and Russian Wikipedia articles call him Swiss, the German article Swiss-German, and the Turkish one Swiss of Kosovar descent, while Wikidata adds Turkish citizenship alongside Swiss. Swiss is the common thread.

His career has centred on Switzerland and its neighbours, with Basel, Luzern and the Croatian club Osijek all named as clubs he turned out for. In October 2020 he moved to Fenerbahçe, which announced the deal and then confirmed he had passed his medical. Asked about the Zlatan nickname his height had earned him, he pointed out at his presentation that his own name was Kemal Ademi.

The Istanbul spell was short. He said in February 2021 that he would come back, but by early 2022 the Turkish press called him a former Fenerbahçe player, and he drew attention with remarks that agents in Turkey had too much influence over how squads were built. Another unexpected transfer put him back in the news in July 2024.