Benjamin Odeje
English footballer
Benjamin Odeje (born c. 1955) is an English former footballer. He was the first black footballer to represent England at any level. Signed to Charlton Athletic, he played in five schoolboy internationals, making his debut against Northern Ireland at Wembley in 1971.
Odeje gave a rare interview to Tell A Friend podcast, in July 2020, where he spoke about the racism he endured during his football career.
Life and career
Odeje was born in Nigeria and as a child moved to England with his parents. The family lived in south-east London, where Odeje attended South East London Secondary School in Deptford, and his mother worked as a nurse. In March 1971, as a 15-year-old, he was selected for the England schoolboys team to play Northern Ireland schoolboys at Wembley. His father was concerned that the considerable publicity surrounding Odeje's selection, as "the first African to play Soccer for England", might make him "a marked man" in the match. Playing out of position on the right wing, Odeje helped his team to a 1–0 win.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16199378. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1955, 1971 and 2020.
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This entry incorporates text from “Benjamin Odeje” 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.