Anderlecht

Lamptey played for the youth team Young Corners in Accra, but wanted to move abroad to play. However, the Ghanaian FA refused and confiscated his passport, wishing to build a team around him in Ghana. He therefore was smuggled into Nigeria by a taxi driver, where he met Nigerian captain Stephen Keshi, who had heard of his skills. Keshi persuaded Lamptey to play in Belgium with him, and took Lamptey with him, giving him a fake Nigerian passport that stated Lamptey was his son.^[3]

He was hailed as the new Pelé and age limit rules in Belgium were changed to allow him to debut at the age of 16 for Anderlecht.^[4]

His first season was a success, scoring 7 goals in 14 games.^[5]

PSV Eindhoven

He was loaned to Eindhoven, and quickly established himself as a prolific scorer, and continued to impress, scoring 10 times in 22 games.^[5]

Aston Villa

Ron Atkinson brought Lamptey to Aston Villa in the summer of 1994. This move came as a surprise, as PSV was a more successful club than Aston Villa at the time and Lamptey was one of the star players at PSV. However, Lamptey had signed an exclusive marketing contract with an Italian player agent. The player's agent, Antonio Caliendo, would get 25% of whatever Lamptey's transfer fee was, and accordingly sold him to Villa as that would mean the largest commission for himself.^[6] Lamptey's illiteracy allowed Caliendo to take advantage of him, even pocketing a signing on bonus intended for Lamptey.^[5] He failed to impress at Villa Park, scoring just three times, all of which came in the League Cup against Wigan Athletic (once in the home leg^[7] and twice in the away leg).^[8]

Coventry City

Following Atkinson's dismissal as Villa boss, he re-signed Lamptey for his new club Coventry City. Again Lamptey would score his only goals in the League Cup, netting twice against Hull City (once in the home leg^[9] and once in the away leg).^[10] However, despite his failure at Coventry, his name was not forgotten. From the start of the 2012–13 season, a group of Coventry City fans launched a podcast entitled The Nii Lamptey Show in honour of their former player.^[11]

Later career

Lamptey joined Venezia in Italy. Later, he was signed by Boca Juniors and went on loan at that same year at Unión de Santa Fe in Argentina. There, he and his wife had their third child, Diego. But soon, Diego died of a rare disease. A major emotional blow was also the fact that Lamptey wanted to bury his son in Ghana, but the authorities declined. Heartbroken, Lamptey temporarily gave up football. After unsuccessful stints at Ankaragücü and União Leiria, Lamptey got himself a new German player agent who transferred him to SpVgg Greuther Fürth. However, Lamptey and his wife were unhappy there, unable to live through the culture shock in Germany. Lamptey was not entirely unsuccessful, being a reliable backup, but was found too fragile for the rough 2. Bundesliga. He was also reportedly ignored by his German colleagues, and once, a colleague flat-out refused to sleep in the same hotel room as him. This blatant racism shocked Lamptey, but even worse was the fact that his child Lisa also died soon after birth. Also Lamptey's second dead child was buried abroad, in Germany. The Lampteys soon left for Asia.^[2]

Lamptey then joined Shandong Luneng Tai Shan in China.^[12]

On 5 March 2007, Lamptey signed for South African side Jomo Cosmos.^[13]

Youth

Senior

His international career with Ghana dried up after he was sent off in the 1996 African Cup of Nations semi-final game.^[24]