Antti Niemi (footballer)
Finnish association football player and coach
Antti Mikko Niemi (born 31 May 1972) is a Finnish former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. He is currently an assistant coach of Volos of the Super League Greece. Since 2010, he has also worked as the goalkeeping coach of Finland national team. He also worked as a goalkeeping coach at Brighton & Hove Albion during the 2014–15 season. Niemi spent time as a player in the Scottish Premier League (with Rangers, Heart of Midlothian) and the Premier League (with Southampton and Fulham), and in 2008 announced his retirement due to injury. However, in 2009 he returned to sign for Premier League club Portsmouth, although he did not make any appearances before leaving in 2010.
Club career
Early career
Niemi was born in Oulu, Finland and started football in local club Oulun Luistinseura (OLS). In 1991, he joined HJK Helsinki, where he made over 100 appearances in four years, before transferring to FC Copenhagen in 1995. Impressive performances over the next two years saw a transfer to Scotland with Glasgow club Rangers.
Rangers
Niemi joined Rangers in 1997 and initially competed with Andy Goram and Theo Snelders for the goalkeeper position; he made seven appearances in all competitions in his first season at Rangers.
The public source identifies “Antti Niemi (footballer)” as finnish association football player and coach. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Antti, Niemi and footballer.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q351254. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1972, 2010, 2014 and 2008.
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This entry incorporates text from “Antti Niemi (footballer)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.