Do we like Michael Essien?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Nothing harmful turned up, he has put money and time into other people, and the one mark is a supportive post he deleted after backlash.
Essien was born in Accra in 1982, went to St Augustine's College in Cape Coast and started out at Liberty Professionals. French club Bastia spotted him in 2000, Lyon bought him in 2003, and Chelsea signed him in 2005 for a club-record fee. The midfielder nicknamed “the Bison” won the Premier League with them in 2005-06 and played at the 2006 World Cup for Ghana.
The big moment for this page's purposes came in March 2021. After a wave of news from Ghana, where homosexuality is criminalised, he posted an image reading “Ghana support equality” with a message to the LGBTQIA+ community: “We see you, we hear you, we support you.” Followers piled in against it, and by the next day the post was gone. PinkNews says it contacted him for comment and reports no reply.
That's the asterisk. He put his name to support for queer Ghanaians when it was risky, then took it down under pressure and, as far as we can find, never explained why. Where you land depends on whether you read the first act or the second as the real him. Either way, there's nothing in our searches of him attacking LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants or the planet, and no pattern of stirring up grievance or conspiracy theories.
On the nice test, the paper trail is mostly sunny. In 2009 he sued the Sunday tabloid The People over two stories and settled with an apology, substantial damages and his costs, so that one went his way. His foundation handed GH¢80,000 to four charities in 2013, split evenly between them.
These days he is an assistant coach at Danish club FC Nordsjælland, which feeds off the Right to Dream academy network. He told the BBC he started coaching “so I could learn how it is to be a coach,” and that he's not chasing the top job: “Not yet.” He also admitted he now understands “a bit more why Jose would get angry,” which is a cheeky nod to his old Chelsea boss.
Lately it's been quiet. In October 2025 he praised the Mansour Group's funding of a new Right to Dream academy near Accra, saying he never had those chances as a kid. In April 2026 he was tipping Mohammed Kudus as Ghana's key man ahead of the World Cup. Nothing controversial has turned up in the last few months, and we found no recent work with anyone who pushes harm.