Victor Nosa Ikpeba was a Nigerian footballer who played as a forward. He was born on June 12, 1973 and was part of the dream team that won the the 1994 African Nations Cup and the Olympic football gold medal in 1996.
Ikpeba was first discovered by Belgian club RFC Liégeois during the 1989 FIFA U-17 World Championshi. He teamed up with Sunday Oliseh at Borussia Dortmund in 1999, for a transfer fee of £4.8m. Ikpeba scored only two goals in his first season in the Bundesliga and barely played in his second, after falling out with the coach Matthias Sammer. and moved to play in Belgium together with teammate Sunday Oliseh. In 1996-97, Ikpeba played for AS Monaco under the coaching of Arsène Wenger and became a figure and earned the African Footballer of the Year award in 1997.
He was to sign a contract with Italian club Reggina, but his wife, unwilling to give up life in France, locked him in their house on the day he was to sign his contract. Looking for a move abroad, Ikpeba turned down Southampton, to join Real Betis on a season-long loan but was criticised for being overweight by the coach so he made just one appearance for the club and didn’t feature again up until the last two games of the season.
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Afterwards, Ikpeba signed a season-long contract with Libyan Al-Ittihad, but only played out half of his contract with the club, as he quit the team over financial disagreements. After leaving Libya and spending almost a year without a club, Ikpeba returned to Belgium, where he joined his former Liège coach at Charleroi. He later had a short spell at Al-Sadd in Qatar, before retiring from professional football.
Ikpeba now lives in Monaco with his three children. His wife Atinuke died in May 2000 at the age of 26, after losing her battle with breast cancer.
