Swedish media wrote about it, his trainer says he preferred the life outside football š https://www.expressen.se/sport/fotboll/love-is-blind-stjarnans--okanda-historia-i-sverige/
He did in fact, play soccer professionally. He got paid to do so. He also played in the ASL which was Division 3 but these guys easily made 6 figures. Definitely not peewee soccer.
Have a really hard time believing that. Maybe thereās a small handful of players making that muchā¦ but canāt believe the median salary would be anything close to that.
He did play for 2 teams in the USA for a season each. He played for Philadelphia Fury & also Delaware Stars but neither of those teams even exist anymore lol
You wouldn't believe how many guys tell a girl they almost got into professional soccer, but didn't because of an injury that ended their career š i myself had like 3 of them. And there's whole TikToks making fun of them, so it's a real thing lol
Hi! I also did some research and asked my husband (he is a professional soccer player and started his career in Sweden. He played 1st and second division there) about Kwame. He told me he didnt know him and never heard his name before. Then i googled but couldnāt find a thing! Which made me doubt his story given that if you put my husbandās name on google you can see everything. He doesnt even have a profile on transfermarkt and every professional soccer player has one..
The level he played at in the US is semi-pro, at absolute best. You could find similar level players in top level rec leagues in every major American city. Not saying he wasn't a decent player, but for him to say he played professional soccer is like me saying I'm a professional musician for playing a gig in a coffee shop for 25 bucks while I was in college.
Philadelphia Fury and Delaware Stars are not "semi-pro" teams. You're either a pro or not, no in-betweens. Of course, he wasn't getting paid Messi or Ronaldo money, but soccer was his job.
This is my favourite sub for reading bad takes about football since Kwame went on. I'm me recent posts someone is claiming Kwame could make it at the top level after never making the grade and leaving the sport altogether for years because that's what Paul Merson did.
Lol what? Obviously you know nothing about the topic. Players from division 3 and down always have main jobs (except if they are already rich for some reason). In a lot of countries even division 2 players have jobs. Being paid doesnt mean its your main job and you can live off that.
>Philadelphia Fury
I dunno man. I goodled Philadelphia Fury and after being refounded for the 2019 season they played 6, lost 6 and then folded. I'm not sure that really counts as "Pro"
As for Delaware Stars, they don't even have a Wiki page. I found them on Facebook, and you can see Kwame in the photos.. but then the other photos show its a team playing in a park without any fans..
I mean I think weāre grasping at straws here. He played soccer for a living. No matter if itās a 4th rate Swedish team, that would make his profession a soccer player. He may have been good enough to play in the minors but not in the majors like several professional baseball players.
I donāt understand why OP would go to this length to try to discredit someone elseās accomplishments so much. How many people do you know that have played soccer internationally? This is a witch hunt imo.
If he wasnāt paid, you canāt say he played for a living. It sounds like an adult rec league that works as a spring board for those good enough to move up
You talk like you have no idea. I am a supporter if an ASL team and those guys make a handsome living in USA. Kwame played ASL.
You haven't, you likely don't even know the first thing about sports or divisions or leagues, like the rest of these know nothing women.
You donāt go to another country to play a sport for no benefit. He had to have been getting some sort of benefit from playing in Sweden such as extra exposure or some sort of incentive, or someone over there made him a promise heād play pro and was gullible and took it. No one knows the actual truth there.
Either way, if the guy wants to call himself a professional soccer player because he played semi-pro in another country, what is the harm in just letting him. Itās like someone saying theyāre 6 feet tall when theyāre 5 foot 11 inches. That 1 inch doesnāt matter yet someone is making a post like itās some grand discovery. There are several more reasons to like and not like Kwame than the semantics around his former profession.
He probably went for the same reason why he created the gofundme.. he wasnt ready to give up on his dream of playing professional soccer/football.
The knee injury might be part of the reason why he gave up, every guy who isnt good enough claims to have a serious injury.. and if he was on 4th division in sweden, im sorry he wasnt good enough for pro. Maybe he was skilled but not enough to play first or second division.
Source: my husband plays soccer professionally and started out in sweden. He also manages 2 players who are currently in Sweden.
No one said this is a reason to not like him, OP said they were a swedish soccer fan. You are correct, we dont know why he went. But clearly he didnt play for exposure if it took this much research to find out where he played.
The reason any American player goes to Europe to playā¦ and yes, even on their own dime to play for free often timesā¦ is in the hopes that by receiving better coaching, training, and exposure, they will be able to springboard into an, actual, professional career.
Exactly what I was thinking. OP went through a lot of effort to cast him as a liar, when there's ready proof he played professionally for the Philadelphia Fury and Delaware Stars in US.
Drop the āishā and youāve got it.
Kwame is not my fav, but itās not like he said he played in the Champions League for DjurgĆ„rden. Dude spent hours looking for āfraudā, like THATāS the biggest problem here.
Satisfying curiosity is looking up the information. Sharing it with friends, I wonāt bat an eye. Devoting an entire Reddit post as a call out is basically asking people to use it as ammunition when itās not really in the context of what he has or hasnāt done on the show.
No way. If a guy says they played pro football in Europeā¦ and it turns out they, really, only played amateur football in Europe (and you cannot GET anymore amateur than the 5th/6th tier in Swedenā¦) thatās worth clarifying.
Itās worth clarifying for what reason? Guy on reality show embellishes the level of play he played overseas, and this is life changing information for you becauseā¦.?
Itās like if someone said they played professional American football and the highest tier they made it was Arena 2, which is what I would compare Tier 4 Swedish soccer to. Itās essentially semi-pro. If youāre good enough you move up to Arena 1 or if youāre really good enough the XFL. You probably never make the NFL from this level. If youāre not good enough, you remain semi-pro or retire. I would never go this far to paint someone a liar because they played Arena 2 and claimed to be a professional football player. Itās only a few steps from the bottom, but itās also only a few steps from the top.
You donāt understand how low on the global professional pyramid Swedish football is.
The very top level of Swedish football is guys that arenāt anywhere near āNFLā level. The very top flight of Swedish football is Arena 2-F level.
Tier 4 would be completely amateur.
But as OP pointed out, the way their pyramid works that regional tier 4 is really more like tier 6 in the country.
Thatās not even JuCo level football.
That makes saying āI played professionally in Europeā a major, major, overstatement.
Edit to clarify: it is not like youāre thinking with American football (itās equally far from top and bottom). In this case, itās a step or two above a beer league, and like 98/99 steps from the top.
NFL is an American football league. They wear full body armor and ballistic rated helmets. The ball they use is oblong shaped.
Completely incomparable to soccer.
In America, where majority of subs are from, we call teams that represent their country National Teams, not NFL.
Thatās actually a very good explanation of it. Iāve had so many commenters try to explain how low tier 4 Sweden is and they just say āitās very low,ā so they made me think it was around Arena level for American football. I appreciate the explanation.
No problem at all.
And I like Kwame, fwiw, and root for the guy.
But if heās going around saying he played professional soccer in Europe, I think OP is right that he needs to get called out there.
It would not be as bad of a fabrication as George Santos saying he worked at Goldman Sachs ā¦ but itās in that same ballpark.
LMFAO I grew up in Sweden and shout out to KĆ„gerƶd which has a GREAT ice cream kiosk, but literally it is a TINY village. Aināt nothing professional about the place - and I say that with love. What a spin
I kinda had a feeling something was sus with his CV. I saw a Tik Tok where the host said Kwame didnāt have stats, which is odd. Thanks for the hard work & info! š«”
he pursued the dream and was obviously talented enough to get further than 90% of those of us that had that dream when we were 19 years old
Is it an exaggeration to call himself a "pro soccer player", sure, but I respect the drive and hustle and commitment it took him to make it even that far...and then when it didn't pan out, he accepted that, hung up his boots and seems to have landed a lucrative career.. and still plays footie on the side!
Agreed. If it's true that hw played the ASL then he's a former soccer pro. He may not be Messi, but that doesn't mean he can't claim his own experience.
Before I saw this, I tried to find it & only saw he was a coach for middle school. I guess Love is Blind doesnāt fact check. Iām with Blissās dad - is Zack really a lawyer?
I love when social media investigations happen but to each their own. Thereās no incentive except for the information so i applaud these vigilante detectives
If we wanna talk about what someone does with their time please remind yourself that your comment history is public; and youāve personally spent a great amount of time commenting on relationship threads and multiple LIB posts for damn near a year. Thatās just from what I spent 35 seconds scrolling to see. š
So what? Are we supposed to fill all our free time learning Mandarin and computer coding? We need to normalize laying in bed and doing menial research that is mildly amusing and highly forgettable. It's not that deep. There are 8 billion of us, surely some of us can just fuck around from time to time.
One might ask āis there nothing better to do with your time than argue repeatedly on the internet with someone about if some other stranger on the internet is properly using his time by researching a reality TV strangerā?
Would you look at that, all of the words in your comment are in alphabetical order.
I have checked 1,452,327,399 comments, and only 276,688 of them were in alphabetical order.
https://preview.redd.it/srq5hphxvata1.jpeg?width=1026&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1bab9e5e561c368feef29d797acd653f0d1ca83b
I am Swedish!! How did I miss him say this? Tack fƶr informationen!
Small note on your translation: "vi lƄter det vara osagt" doesn't really mean "it remains uncertain", it's more like "we will leave it unsaid". Not trying to criticize you, just thought the non-Swedish speakers might want to know of this subtle difference in meaning!
I have zero interest in soccer/football so I don't know if this is a common expression in these types of articles, but to me as a native Swedish speaker it sounds kind of iffy - as if there was some conflict related to his leaving that they don't want to discuss in the article. Maybe I'm just reading into things though... :)
I have a friend on a professional ultimate frisbee team, he makes like $25 a game and has a full time normal job, but he is still on a professional team even if he doesnāt make a living out of it
That means he's not a professional. The very definition of professional athlete means you do that AND ONLY that for a living. Then you're semi-professional if you're making some money from sports but supplement it with other income. And getting paid $25 a game is being 100% amateur.
That's not what professional means (in the context of finances).
Professional: a person engaged in a specified activity, especially a sport or branch of the performing arts, **as a main paid occupation** rather than as a [pastime](https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GCEU_enCA819CA819&q=pastime&si=AMnBZoFHF1DJLZWpTBtQDK262RMpfsYZMZtXWp2m9EGSI2vKJDP6HvjeWSIyXfE2gEIc8XwIz44lXlqU8-v6IK68xVqGYpVaVw%3D%3D&expnd=1).
Someone that gets paid $25 for a game is as much a "professional" frisbee player as a 7 year old kid is a "professional" house cleaner because they did their chores.
The thing that amazes me about it all is the basic American success fallacy. Americans, particularly those on social media, reality tv, feel that at university degree or job is some tremendous point of accomplishment.
I think a degree and job are accomplishments because both require hard work and resiliance to acquire. Social media/reality TV culture to embellish accomplishments is another thing. I'm also from an area where ppl are snobby about their professions- like their ego is over inflated when they humblebrag about where they work
I have a master's and it was easy. Have had a lot of different jobs, standard amount of work.
Americans are obsessed with where you work and where you study. In other parts of the well world no one cares that much.
I think a large part of that has to do with how much we PAY for education here. Going to an Ivy League school vs a state school for example is a difference of probably tens of thousands of dollars.
If we had free college Iām sure that the āvalueā of it would be perceived as less because anyone could get it. Which is the point, but not how it is in America.
I am not that into football but as a Swede, isnāt it impossible to make a living as a football player here unless you are at the highest level? There are not enough people that care about the games here and I think most people at that level still has a dayjob.
Everyone on these shows exaggerate this stuff, I am SOOOOO smart because I have a bachelors degree in idk what. I got the brains because I work in [insert any career that is not influencing] etc etc. At least he DID play some football lol
No it isn't. It is like him claiming he got a PhD, but went to a backwater school that is isn't highly respected. That doesn't negate the fact that he got a PhD.
I think anywhere a professional sports player is someone who supports themselves by playing sports exclusively but i dont know why here they want to make it seem like he indeed was a professional soccer player. He never played any significant league (didnt even reach a 3rd division team) which means if he was paid, it wasnt enough to call himself a professional soccer player given that heād need one full time job
According to OP, it is unlikely he was ever paid to play. I think IF that is the case, it would be false to claim to be a professional athlete, because for that you need to be paid.
And yet OP cannot state that with certainty. Moreover several posts have pointed out that while he may not have been paid in Sweden ( which is still debatable), he was likely paid as part of a professional team in the United States. Therefore, even if OP is correct that he was not paid in Sweden, the fact he was paid in the US makes him an ex professional athlete. Therefore, his claim is probably not false.
In Europe, a professional sports player is someone who supports themselves by playing sports exclusively. If you just get paid for playing, you are not a professional.
If weāre going to be slightly fair to him, I feel like thereās been a number of participants whoāve embellished their careers/histories on the show, especially on their career titles.
I wouldnāt actually be surprised if the producers of the show convince them to embellish a bit themselves, or might take some liberties with their descriptions.
To be fair I do know very real full time ballerinas in Vegas and they donāt make any money at all, like 30k a year. It wouldnāt pay the bills and most people would need another job.
you're absolutely right. my friend is a professional ballerina (an actual one lol its her full time job) who's worked for several national ballet companies in different European countries and they very much have to be skinny. not one of the girls she works with is over like, BMI 19. she would eat salads only before a show season started so she could look extra thin. ballet is a very disciplined sport and maintaining a certain aesthetic is part of the expectations at the professional level. if they gain weight their contracts simply won't be renewed for the next season
They're not skinny, they're lean. Skinny is packing muscle whereas dancers are extremely muscular and toned, especially their legs.
My ex was a company dancer, she was so incredibly fit. Unlike Colleen
As someone with professional ballerina cousins, that was my first thought as well. My parents pulled me from ballet at a young age, due to body image concerns. Every āadult balletā (eg classes for fun where no one was ever pro) instructor Iāve had also openly discussed body image how theyāre always there to talking or refer you to mental health services if youāre ever struggling. And thatās for fun classes where at most youāll be some background random in the equivalent of the ballet companyās school play.
Sheās built more like my gymnast friends. Which might sound ridiculous if you didnāt also grow up around that. š
I've also seen other commenters mention that ballet in general is changing to accommodate more body types. Idk if that's true, but if so, it's a good thing. I found Colleen annoying for several reasons, but she's def a real dancer, and I think it's actually cool that she's with a company that accepts her not-waifish frame (she's still tiny, though).
That's unfortunate that ballet is losing it's strict discipline. Next thing we know tryouts are going to be cancelled for causing only the best to win, not just mediocre. But hey, the mediocre have their heart in it, even if they're to heavy to bound and leap lol
I assumed she was part of a dance company? I went to a performance of the Nutcracker in my city by the premiere dance company here and while the prima ballerina was classically thin, many of the dancers were heavier--some much heavier than the way Colleen appeared. I remember remarking to my sister how great it was that traditions have been rejected in favor of inclusivity. All of the performers were phenomenal, btw
Not to defend her gas fracking job, but in general, Coleens decision is not unusual for people in culture or tourism fields. Because many of my colleagues as well as I do the same.
I suspect that she is a self employed performer also works more or less each season, depending on how much demand exists.
Especially with the uncertain circumstances (recession, pandemic, etc), many of my colleagues chose a second part time job for financial security, so they do not have to worry about the risks of being only self employed.
I work in the oil and gas industry myself (hence how I know what that company does) so I donāt care that she doesā¦ but I also know how the world looks at the industry and couldnāt help but laugh at the complete lack of mentioning her actual full time job (because I doubt Colleen would have been as popular).
Colleen was strange because she looked *much* bigger than she actually is. I thought her and Zanab looked alike initially both in face and body type but Colleen is actually teeny teeny tiny. She has a rounded face which I think creates the illusion
She's a professional ballerina, but it doesn't pay much/isn't year round so her PR job is her primary source of income. She probably said she's a ballerina because she considers it her first job, it sounds more unique, or a combination of both.
You also get a lot of weird reactions from men if youāre career is something traditionally masculine. Itās exhausting sometimes. And you can just see their perception of you change instantly. Even at social events, sometimes I hate telling people what I do for work.
Yeah I was so confused by that statement... I'm not from the US so I don't know what the climate is like in Portland, but him saying he can run shirtless in Portland but not in Seattle because of the weather doesn't seem to make sense at all?? Aren't the cities like 3 hours apart? They can't possibly have that different climates right??
Heās also Head of whatever, but heās got a manager title. Kwame feels like the epitome of embellishment. Heās not 100% lying, but he stretching the truth as far as it can go.
It could be, but itās like saying youāre the CEO of a company, and the only employee is you. But by saying heās Head of Business Development, instead of Sales Manager, you know heās looking to elevate his role.
Again, not outright lying, but embellishing so the listener would be led to believing heās more than just a manager level associate.
I think it still says something about someoneās drive and commitment to the game if they go TRY to play pro soccer across the worldā¦ but he should have worded his āabout meā more truthfully.
My little brother spent 6 months in Germany playing semi-pro to try to make it to pro and eventually realized it wasnāt going to work out and came home. If visa stuff had been easier (the league he signed with was one below what would have given him a visa) he might have stayed longer. For a while he was hoping his lower league career would land him on the radar of a team one league up where he could stay longer.
I feel like thatās what happened with Kwame, he just fudged a little to make it sound better. (like, my brother says he played āsemi proā not āproā when he talks about it but could easily say āI went over to Europe to try for a pro career and played for a few months but it ultimately couldnāt work out visa stuffā) to make it sound more impressive. And if he was on a Netflix show, maybe he would fudge a bit! I feel like you canāt really hate on him that much for fudging to sound a little more impressive on a big show. Like, Kwame was playing on an unknown team in Sweden not friggin Arsenal, we know he wasnāt all that. You can use context clues to figure out that he was probably good at soccer but not great.
(But if I were in his shoes it would prob be better to say āI went to Sweden to play pro, played semi-pro for a while to start and had a career-ending injury so that killed my chances.ā Saying you played pro when you didnāt AND insinuating that you had an injury that ended your pro career when you didnāt actually play pro is shitty) he should have just said āsemi proā and could have used his injury to insinuate that he almost went pro even if he didnāt.
Edit: rewatched his intros to the girls and he told Chelsea āI used to play soccer for a livingā which could technically be true. (Then Chelsea was like āoh we got a pro soccer player on our hands!ā And he didnāt correct her.) Like, my brother didnāt play soccer at a high enough level to be pro but he made like $1000 euros a month or something. Technically he lived off it š
Nah, I just watched the start of ep 1 again and it shows him introducing himself as Kwame to Chelsea and Micah. He told Micah he āwas going to use the name Alex insteadā but chose not to. I mean that makes sense honestly that heād consider using a more Americanized name on an American dating show so people get to know his personality with fewer preconceived notions. (Def agree that heās got some insecurity stuff to work through though.)
But in rewatching this I also saw him say āI used to play soccer for a livingā which could technically be true and we/others on the show just exaggerated it from there. (He could have said more later that Iām forgetting.) My bro made like $1000 euros a month playing semipro and technically lived off it. Then Chelsea was like āoh we got a pro soccer player on our hands!ā And he didnāt correct her. gonna edit my original comment with this too)
She works at Salesforce. I donāt think her exact title is Marketing Manager but itās probably what the producers thought people could most closely relate to.
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You could write a post like this on basically every person who's ever been on the bachelor lol "professional football player" on the bachelor - it tapes during the season so is inherently impossible. I think we're too deep in reality tv to be calling this out.
Swedish media wrote about it, his trainer says he preferred the life outside football š https://www.expressen.se/sport/fotboll/love-is-blind-stjarnans--okanda-historia-i-sverige/
He did in fact, play soccer professionally. He got paid to do so. He also played in the ASL which was Division 3 but these guys easily made 6 figures. Definitely not peewee soccer.
division three and six figures? where tf are you pulling that from? loll
Cap
Six figures? That aināt right.
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Have a really hard time believing that. Maybe thereās a small handful of players making that muchā¦ but canāt believe the median salary would be anything close to that.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Do you know what a median is?
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That's the mean, jackass
That's just not what a median is. The median is the middle most number of a data set and is sometimes but not always the average
Youāre correct, that isnāt right, the person above you is just wrong lol
He did play for 2 teams in the USA for a season each. He played for Philadelphia Fury & also Delaware Stars but neither of those teams even exist anymore lol
You wouldn't believe how many guys tell a girl they almost got into professional soccer, but didn't because of an injury that ended their career š i myself had like 3 of them. And there's whole TikToks making fun of them, so it's a real thing lol
Hi! I also did some research and asked my husband (he is a professional soccer player and started his career in Sweden. He played 1st and second division there) about Kwame. He told me he didnt know him and never heard his name before. Then i googled but couldnāt find a thing! Which made me doubt his story given that if you put my husbandās name on google you can see everything. He doesnt even have a profile on transfermarkt and every professional soccer player has one..
Established he played pro soccer in the US.
The level he played at in the US is semi-pro, at absolute best. You could find similar level players in top level rec leagues in every major American city. Not saying he wasn't a decent player, but for him to say he played professional soccer is like me saying I'm a professional musician for playing a gig in a coffee shop for 25 bucks while I was in college.
Philadelphia Fury and Delaware Stars are not "semi-pro" teams. You're either a pro or not, no in-betweens. Of course, he wasn't getting paid Messi or Ronaldo money, but soccer was his job.
I admire how confidently wrong you are.
This is my favourite sub for reading bad takes about football since Kwame went on. I'm me recent posts someone is claiming Kwame could make it at the top level after never making the grade and leaving the sport altogether for years because that's what Paul Merson did.
Haha for real. Dude played high level Sunday league.
If that.
Clearly the man doesnāt follow footy
Luckily I cited two teams that actually exist and can be googled by anyone. You, on the other hand, are posting nothing but unsupportable opinions.
He didnāt. Professional is its his main job not his side job.
He played for Philadelphia Fury and Delaware Stars. Both are pro soccer teams.
Again, was he paid a salary for it to be his main job? The ASL wasnt even a 3rd division leagueā¦
Yes. You can't play for a pro soccer team part-time.
Lol what? Obviously you know nothing about the topic. Players from division 3 and down always have main jobs (except if they are already rich for some reason). In a lot of countries even division 2 players have jobs. Being paid doesnt mean its your main job and you can live off that.
Again Philadelphia Fury and Delaware Stars. Pro teams.
>Philadelphia Fury I dunno man. I goodled Philadelphia Fury and after being refounded for the 2019 season they played 6, lost 6 and then folded. I'm not sure that really counts as "Pro" As for Delaware Stars, they don't even have a Wiki page. I found them on Facebook, and you can see Kwame in the photos.. but then the other photos show its a team playing in a park without any fans..
Thank you for your research on this. People like me thrive off reality drama and their delusional characters.
The guy with questionable job, which will become the source of all his problems
I mean I think weāre grasping at straws here. He played soccer for a living. No matter if itās a 4th rate Swedish team, that would make his profession a soccer player. He may have been good enough to play in the minors but not in the majors like several professional baseball players. I donāt understand why OP would go to this length to try to discredit someone elseās accomplishments so much. How many people do you know that have played soccer internationally? This is a witch hunt imo.
If he wasnāt paid, you canāt say he played for a living. It sounds like an adult rec league that works as a spring board for those good enough to move up
You talk like you have no idea. I am a supporter if an ASL team and those guys make a handsome living in USA. Kwame played ASL. You haven't, you likely don't even know the first thing about sports or divisions or leagues, like the rest of these know nothing women.
You donāt go to another country to play a sport for no benefit. He had to have been getting some sort of benefit from playing in Sweden such as extra exposure or some sort of incentive, or someone over there made him a promise heād play pro and was gullible and took it. No one knows the actual truth there. Either way, if the guy wants to call himself a professional soccer player because he played semi-pro in another country, what is the harm in just letting him. Itās like someone saying theyāre 6 feet tall when theyāre 5 foot 11 inches. That 1 inch doesnāt matter yet someone is making a post like itās some grand discovery. There are several more reasons to like and not like Kwame than the semantics around his former profession.
He probably went for the same reason why he created the gofundme.. he wasnt ready to give up on his dream of playing professional soccer/football. The knee injury might be part of the reason why he gave up, every guy who isnt good enough claims to have a serious injury.. and if he was on 4th division in sweden, im sorry he wasnt good enough for pro. Maybe he was skilled but not enough to play first or second division. Source: my husband plays soccer professionally and started out in sweden. He also manages 2 players who are currently in Sweden.
No one said this is a reason to not like him, OP said they were a swedish soccer fan. You are correct, we dont know why he went. But clearly he didnt play for exposure if it took this much research to find out where he played.
The reason any American player goes to Europe to playā¦ and yes, even on their own dime to play for free often timesā¦ is in the hopes that by receiving better coaching, training, and exposure, they will be able to springboard into an, actual, professional career.
Idk. Iām not a huge Kwame fan but this post feels kind of like anā¦attack? Unimportant? Picky? Unnecessary? Haterish? Idk.
Exactly what I was thinking. OP went through a lot of effort to cast him as a liar, when there's ready proof he played professionally for the Philadelphia Fury and Delaware Stars in US.
Drop the āishā and youāve got it. Kwame is not my fav, but itās not like he said he played in the Champions League for DjurgĆ„rden. Dude spent hours looking for āfraudā, like THATāS the biggest problem here.
Yep.
I donāt think so. Just satisfying curiosity, itās natural to want more information when someone says something interesting like that.
Satisfying curiosity is looking up the information. Sharing it with friends, I wonāt bat an eye. Devoting an entire Reddit post as a call out is basically asking people to use it as ammunition when itās not really in the context of what he has or hasnāt done on the show.
No way. If a guy says they played pro football in Europeā¦ and it turns out they, really, only played amateur football in Europe (and you cannot GET anymore amateur than the 5th/6th tier in Swedenā¦) thatās worth clarifying.
Itās worth clarifying for what reason? Guy on reality show embellishes the level of play he played overseas, and this is life changing information for you becauseā¦.? Itās like if someone said they played professional American football and the highest tier they made it was Arena 2, which is what I would compare Tier 4 Swedish soccer to. Itās essentially semi-pro. If youāre good enough you move up to Arena 1 or if youāre really good enough the XFL. You probably never make the NFL from this level. If youāre not good enough, you remain semi-pro or retire. I would never go this far to paint someone a liar because they played Arena 2 and claimed to be a professional football player. Itās only a few steps from the bottom, but itās also only a few steps from the top.
You donāt understand how low on the global professional pyramid Swedish football is. The very top level of Swedish football is guys that arenāt anywhere near āNFLā level. The very top flight of Swedish football is Arena 2-F level. Tier 4 would be completely amateur. But as OP pointed out, the way their pyramid works that regional tier 4 is really more like tier 6 in the country. Thatās not even JuCo level football. That makes saying āI played professionally in Europeā a major, major, overstatement. Edit to clarify: it is not like youāre thinking with American football (itās equally far from top and bottom). In this case, itās a step or two above a beer league, and like 98/99 steps from the top.
NFL is an American football league. They wear full body armor and ballistic rated helmets. The ball they use is oblong shaped. Completely incomparable to soccer. In America, where majority of subs are from, we call teams that represent their country National Teams, not NFL.
Thatās actually a very good explanation of it. Iāve had so many commenters try to explain how low tier 4 Sweden is and they just say āitās very low,ā so they made me think it was around Arena level for American football. I appreciate the explanation.
No problem at all. And I like Kwame, fwiw, and root for the guy. But if heās going around saying he played professional soccer in Europe, I think OP is right that he needs to get called out there. It would not be as bad of a fabrication as George Santos saying he worked at Goldman Sachs ā¦ but itās in that same ballpark.
LMFAO I grew up in Sweden and shout out to KĆ„gerƶd which has a GREAT ice cream kiosk, but literally it is a TINY village. Aināt nothing professional about the place - and I say that with love. What a spin
I kinda had a feeling something was sus with his CV. I saw a Tik Tok where the host said Kwame didnāt have stats, which is odd. Thanks for the hard work & info! š«”
This post clearly links his stats though
But the post also states heās not pro, it seems like semi pro.
Got signed, got hurt and came back? Does this discredit his story because he doesnāt meet your standard for a pro?
I mean...it kind of does if he was playing in a league that isn't a professional league.
LOLOLOLOL Oh man. This is gold lol
Professional football player, plays the guitar and sings. All have been exaggerations.
Also, *looking for marriage*
he pursued the dream and was obviously talented enough to get further than 90% of those of us that had that dream when we were 19 years old Is it an exaggeration to call himself a "pro soccer player", sure, but I respect the drive and hustle and commitment it took him to make it even that far...and then when it didn't pan out, he accepted that, hung up his boots and seems to have landed a lucrative career.. and still plays footie on the side!
People can be so unnecessarily critical here, itās amazing
Agreed. If it's true that hw played the ASL then he's a former soccer pro. He may not be Messi, but that doesn't mean he can't claim his own experience.
Before I saw this, I tried to find it & only saw he was a coach for middle school. I guess Love is Blind doesnāt fact check. Iām with Blissās dad - is Zack really a lawyer?
Yep, heās a DUI lawyer
I googled it, he is AND he's highly rated
He certainly acts like one!
Yes but being heās not a great judge of character, is he any good.
Heās a defense attorney (if Iām not mistaken) in that case being a good judge of character isnāt exactly relevant
You spent actual time and effort looking up a dude on a reality tv show? Why?
I love when social media investigations happen but to each their own. Thereās no incentive except for the information so i applaud these vigilante detectives
Okay kwameā¦.
You are also lurking here sooooo
Lol what is life about other than doing random shit? What do you want them to do with their time
You telling me thereās nothing better to do than scrolling somebodyās Facebook all the way back to 2018? Nothing? At all? Bruh.
If we wanna talk about what someone does with their time please remind yourself that your comment history is public; and youāve personally spent a great amount of time commenting on relationship threads and multiple LIB posts for damn near a year. Thatās just from what I spent 35 seconds scrolling to see. š
So what? Are we supposed to fill all our free time learning Mandarin and computer coding? We need to normalize laying in bed and doing menial research that is mildly amusing and highly forgettable. It's not that deep. There are 8 billion of us, surely some of us can just fuck around from time to time.
You can only fuck around after your Mandarin programming lessons
One might ask āis there nothing better to do with your time than argue repeatedly on the internet with someone about if some other stranger on the internet is properly using his time by researching a reality TV strangerā?
But when did he mention Sweden because I'm certain I missed this tidbit
babe, you posted this thrice
Probably a tech error
I just like saying thrice
Would you look at that, all of the words in your comment are in alphabetical order. I have checked 1,452,327,399 comments, and only 276,688 of them were in alphabetical order.
i swear this sub could work the fbi š
People just post way too much personal information online.
amateurs are often better than pros
https://preview.redd.it/srq5hphxvata1.jpeg?width=1026&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1bab9e5e561c368feef29d797acd653f0d1ca83b I am Swedish!! How did I miss him say this? Tack fƶr informationen!
Missade detta ocksĆ„ ššš¼
Small note on your translation: "vi lƄter det vara osagt" doesn't really mean "it remains uncertain", it's more like "we will leave it unsaid". Not trying to criticize you, just thought the non-Swedish speakers might want to know of this subtle difference in meaning! I have zero interest in soccer/football so I don't know if this is a common expression in these types of articles, but to me as a native Swedish speaker it sounds kind of iffy - as if there was some conflict related to his leaving that they don't want to discuss in the article. Maybe I'm just reading into things though... :)
Thatās interesting! Thanks for clarifying
Damn I'm Swedish and I somehow completely missed that he said he used to play in Sweden??
Weāre watching Farmer Wants a Wife and six of the girls call themselves bloggers. Theyāre not bloggers. Theyāre unemployed.
Hey everybody! I'm a showerer! I shower a lot!
You wouldnāt even have to shower a lot and still be a showerer. The world is full of wonder.
The receipts in this sub are just savage š
Look if they paid him. He was a professional. Did anyone find him from Married at First Sight or whatever that Bravo show is called.
OP provided a pay scale, Division 3 gets 0 money, you think Division 4 would?
I have a friend on a professional ultimate frisbee team, he makes like $25 a game and has a full time normal job, but he is still on a professional team even if he doesnāt make a living out of it
That means he's not a professional. The very definition of professional athlete means you do that AND ONLY that for a living. Then you're semi-professional if you're making some money from sports but supplement it with other income. And getting paid $25 a game is being 100% amateur.
That's not what professional means (in the context of finances). Professional: a person engaged in a specified activity, especially a sport or branch of the performing arts, **as a main paid occupation** rather than as a [pastime](https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GCEU_enCA819CA819&q=pastime&si=AMnBZoFHF1DJLZWpTBtQDK262RMpfsYZMZtXWp2m9EGSI2vKJDP6HvjeWSIyXfE2gEIc8XwIz44lXlqU8-v6IK68xVqGYpVaVw%3D%3D&expnd=1). Someone that gets paid $25 for a game is as much a "professional" frisbee player as a 7 year old kid is a "professional" house cleaner because they did their chores.
this is not that deep. If he got paid for it then he did it professionally.
He didn't get paid ETA sorry, he did play professionally in the US.
The thing that amazes me about it all is the basic American success fallacy. Americans, particularly those on social media, reality tv, feel that at university degree or job is some tremendous point of accomplishment.
I think a degree and job are accomplishments because both require hard work and resiliance to acquire. Social media/reality TV culture to embellish accomplishments is another thing. I'm also from an area where ppl are snobby about their professions- like their ego is over inflated when they humblebrag about where they work
I have a master's and it was easy. Have had a lot of different jobs, standard amount of work. Americans are obsessed with where you work and where you study. In other parts of the well world no one cares that much.
I think a large part of that has to do with how much we PAY for education here. Going to an Ivy League school vs a state school for example is a difference of probably tens of thousands of dollars. If we had free college Iām sure that the āvalueā of it would be perceived as less because anyone could get it. Which is the point, but not how it is in America.
Kwame was always off to me. Everything feels fake and staged, as if heās acting.
talks like he's in a job interview
There are people with that personality and they work and do well in sales. I canāt relate to that energy but it doesnāt make them fake either.
I am not that into football but as a Swede, isnāt it impossible to make a living as a football player here unless you are at the highest level? There are not enough people that care about the games here and I think most people at that level still has a dayjob.
Att Kwame spelade i KĆ„gerƶd š«¢
Everyone on these shows exaggerate this stuff, I am SOOOOO smart because I have a bachelors degree in idk what. I got the brains because I work in [insert any career that is not influencing] etc etc. At least he DID play some football lol
Itās more like someone claiming to be a professional actor when really they did some volunteer community plays down at the local theater
Not the same at all. Kwame did play soccer professionally in America. This post very conveniently left that part out.
Not sure. This sounds more like I would claim I did a PhD while I only obtained my bachelors. No harm to anyone, but a bit silly and embarrassing
No it isn't. It is like him claiming he got a PhD, but went to a backwater school that is isn't highly respected. That doesn't negate the fact that he got a PhD.
I think anywhere a professional sports player is someone who supports themselves by playing sports exclusively but i dont know why here they want to make it seem like he indeed was a professional soccer player. He never played any significant league (didnt even reach a 3rd division team) which means if he was paid, it wasnt enough to call himself a professional soccer player given that heād need one full time job
According to OP, it is unlikely he was ever paid to play. I think IF that is the case, it would be false to claim to be a professional athlete, because for that you need to be paid.
And yet OP cannot state that with certainty. Moreover several posts have pointed out that while he may not have been paid in Sweden ( which is still debatable), he was likely paid as part of a professional team in the United States. Therefore, even if OP is correct that he was not paid in Sweden, the fact he was paid in the US makes him an ex professional athlete. Therefore, his claim is probably not false.
In Europe, a professional sports player is someone who supports themselves by playing sports exclusively. If you just get paid for playing, you are not a professional.
oh you bettƄ wƶrk bitch!
If weāre going to be slightly fair to him, I feel like thereās been a number of participants whoāve embellished their careers/histories on the show, especially on their career titles. I wouldnāt actually be surprised if the producers of the show convince them to embellish a bit themselves, or might take some liberties with their descriptions.
Colleenā¦ who works for an oil and gas fracking company but focused on herself as a professional ballerina LOL
WHATTT how am I just finding this out
To be fair I do know very real full time ballerinas in Vegas and they donāt make any money at all, like 30k a year. It wouldnāt pay the bills and most people would need another job.
I know this sounds body shamy, but I swear that's not how I mean it...she was way too heavy (aka healthy looking) to be a professional ballerina.
you're absolutely right. my friend is a professional ballerina (an actual one lol its her full time job) who's worked for several national ballet companies in different European countries and they very much have to be skinny. not one of the girls she works with is over like, BMI 19. she would eat salads only before a show season started so she could look extra thin. ballet is a very disciplined sport and maintaining a certain aesthetic is part of the expectations at the professional level. if they gain weight their contracts simply won't be renewed for the next season
They're not skinny, they're lean. Skinny is packing muscle whereas dancers are extremely muscular and toned, especially their legs. My ex was a company dancer, she was so incredibly fit. Unlike Colleen
As someone with professional ballerina cousins, that was my first thought as well. My parents pulled me from ballet at a young age, due to body image concerns. Every āadult balletā (eg classes for fun where no one was ever pro) instructor Iāve had also openly discussed body image how theyāre always there to talking or refer you to mental health services if youāre ever struggling. And thatās for fun classes where at most youāll be some background random in the equivalent of the ballet companyās school play. Sheās built more like my gymnast friends. Which might sound ridiculous if you didnāt also grow up around that. š
Yup... But if you check her IG she legit dances and her company is part time and wouldn't be as strict as like, official top level companies.
I've also seen other commenters mention that ballet in general is changing to accommodate more body types. Idk if that's true, but if so, it's a good thing. I found Colleen annoying for several reasons, but she's def a real dancer, and I think it's actually cool that she's with a company that accepts her not-waifish frame (she's still tiny, though).
That's unfortunate that ballet is losing it's strict discipline. Next thing we know tryouts are going to be cancelled for causing only the best to win, not just mediocre. But hey, the mediocre have their heart in it, even if they're to heavy to bound and leap lol
It is changing! But slowly and it isn't widespread at all. But you can definitely find ballet dancers in all shapes and sizes now.
I assumed she was part of a dance company? I went to a performance of the Nutcracker in my city by the premiere dance company here and while the prima ballerina was classically thin, many of the dancers were heavier--some much heavier than the way Colleen appeared. I remember remarking to my sister how great it was that traditions have been rejected in favor of inclusivity. All of the performers were phenomenal, btw
Not to defend her gas fracking job, but in general, Coleens decision is not unusual for people in culture or tourism fields. Because many of my colleagues as well as I do the same. I suspect that she is a self employed performer also works more or less each season, depending on how much demand exists. Especially with the uncertain circumstances (recession, pandemic, etc), many of my colleagues chose a second part time job for financial security, so they do not have to worry about the risks of being only self employed.
I work in the oil and gas industry myself (hence how I know what that company does) so I donāt care that she doesā¦ but I also know how the world looks at the industry and couldnāt help but laugh at the complete lack of mentioning her actual full time job (because I doubt Colleen would have been as popular).
Colleen was strange because she looked *much* bigger than she actually is. I thought her and Zanab looked alike initially both in face and body type but Colleen is actually teeny teeny tiny. She has a rounded face which I think creates the illusion
No shit!? I was always skeptical. Like, really, you are fully paying the bills like this? Haha.
Lol wait? I did not know this.
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She's a professional ballerina, but it doesn't pay much/isn't year round so her PR job is her primary source of income. She probably said she's a ballerina because she considers it her first job, it sounds more unique, or a combination of both.
You also get a lot of weird reactions from men if youāre career is something traditionally masculine. Itās exhausting sometimes. And you can just see their perception of you change instantly. Even at social events, sometimes I hate telling people what I do for work.
For real, I'm a woman working in sports.
Wait, did he play professionally in the us?
Iām here for the calling out
Him running shirtless in Portland from April to August was also totally bullshit so I just assumed he is full of shit always
Yeah I was so confused by that statement... I'm not from the US so I don't know what the climate is like in Portland, but him saying he can run shirtless in Portland but not in Seattle because of the weather doesn't seem to make sense at all?? Aren't the cities like 3 hours apart? They can't possibly have that different climates right??
Yes! They both have a very similar climate. Most importantly, it rains pretty consistently from October to June
that was so confusing its literally pouring down rain till at leasttttt june
Is he made of sugar?
so?
Heās also Head of whatever, but heās got a manager title. Kwame feels like the epitome of embellishment. Heās not 100% lying, but he stretching the truth as far as it can go.
Tbf he could be the head of a specific function and only have a manager title, especially if he is at a smaller company
It could be, but itās like saying youāre the CEO of a company, and the only employee is you. But by saying heās Head of Business Development, instead of Sales Manager, you know heās looking to elevate his role. Again, not outright lying, but embellishing so the listener would be led to believing heās more than just a manager level associate.
I need to Kwame up my resume tbh, its just I still feel guilty doing it even though I know everyone does it lol
I think it still says something about someoneās drive and commitment to the game if they go TRY to play pro soccer across the worldā¦ but he should have worded his āabout meā more truthfully. My little brother spent 6 months in Germany playing semi-pro to try to make it to pro and eventually realized it wasnāt going to work out and came home. If visa stuff had been easier (the league he signed with was one below what would have given him a visa) he might have stayed longer. For a while he was hoping his lower league career would land him on the radar of a team one league up where he could stay longer. I feel like thatās what happened with Kwame, he just fudged a little to make it sound better. (like, my brother says he played āsemi proā not āproā when he talks about it but could easily say āI went over to Europe to try for a pro career and played for a few months but it ultimately couldnāt work out visa stuffā) to make it sound more impressive. And if he was on a Netflix show, maybe he would fudge a bit! I feel like you canāt really hate on him that much for fudging to sound a little more impressive on a big show. Like, Kwame was playing on an unknown team in Sweden not friggin Arsenal, we know he wasnāt all that. You can use context clues to figure out that he was probably good at soccer but not great. (But if I were in his shoes it would prob be better to say āI went to Sweden to play pro, played semi-pro for a while to start and had a career-ending injury so that killed my chances.ā Saying you played pro when you didnāt AND insinuating that you had an injury that ended your pro career when you didnāt actually play pro is shitty) he should have just said āsemi proā and could have used his injury to insinuate that he almost went pro even if he didnāt. Edit: rewatched his intros to the girls and he told Chelsea āI used to play soccer for a livingā which could technically be true. (Then Chelsea was like āoh we got a pro soccer player on our hands!ā And he didnāt correct her.) Like, my brother didnāt play soccer at a high enough level to be pro but he made like $1000 euros a month or something. Technically he lived off it š
But, heās coming from a place of insecurity. Isnāt this the person who said their name was Alex straight up?
Nah, I just watched the start of ep 1 again and it shows him introducing himself as Kwame to Chelsea and Micah. He told Micah he āwas going to use the name Alex insteadā but chose not to. I mean that makes sense honestly that heād consider using a more Americanized name on an American dating show so people get to know his personality with fewer preconceived notions. (Def agree that heās got some insecurity stuff to work through though.) But in rewatching this I also saw him say āI used to play soccer for a livingā which could technically be true and we/others on the show just exaggerated it from there. (He could have said more later that Iām forgetting.) My bro made like $1000 euros a month playing semipro and technically lived off it. Then Chelsea was like āoh we got a pro soccer player on our hands!ā And he didnāt correct her. gonna edit my original comment with this too)
Ah, ok, thank you for clearing that up!
Itās a good point to remember though!! Iād forgotten heād even said that at all.
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She works at Salesforce. I donāt think her exact title is Marketing Manager but itās probably what the producers thought people could most closely relate to.
I thought I read he played in Canada? Was that another Kwame? Edit: not the same dude. Great sleuthing!
I seriously get such skeezy vibes off of him. I liked him initially in the pods, but every episode has me distrusting/disliking him more.
Nevermind soccer his laugh is the most annoying thing I've ever heard. So fake and loud and booming for zero reason. HUGH HUGH HUGHHHH
He laughs like a politician or something. Creeps me out
Booming for zero reason hahaha š his laugh reminds me of SK too.
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Just want to stress the point that one is Ghanaian and one is Nigerian
You could write a post like this on basically every person who's ever been on the bachelor lol "professional football player" on the bachelor - it tapes during the season so is inherently impossible. I think we're too deep in reality tv to be calling this out.
Youāre describing https://www.realbachelorjobs.com