Bolingoli-Mbombo, Boli

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Personal

Fullname: Boli Bolingoli-Mbombo
aka: Boli Mbombo, Boli B Mbombo, Boli Bolingoli, BBM
Born: 1 July 1995
Birthplace: Antwerp, Belgium
Signed:3 July 2019 (£3m from Rapid Vienna)
Loan out: 13 Sep 2020 (sent out on loan to Istanbul Basaksehir for a year)
Loan out: 22 Feb 2022 (sent out on loan to FC Ufa (Russia) for remainder of season, but quickly annulled)
Left: 12 July 2022 (to KV Mechelen (Belgium), free)
Position: Left-back, Full-back, Defender
Debut: FK Sarajevo 1-3 Celtic, Champions League Qualifier, 9 Jul 2019
Squad No.: 23
Internationals: none

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Biog

Bolingoli arrived at Celtic as the third summer signing in 2019 after Christopher Jullien & Luca Connell. Coming in from Rapid Vienna at £3million, Bolingoli was Celtic’s most expensive left-back signing to date and the club’s first paid for left-back signing since Izaguirre in 2010.

Brought in to compete for the left-back jersey alongside Tierney (didn’t happen as Tierney left to Arsenal), Boli made his debut in the champions league qualifiers against FK Sarajevo. Consistently played throughout the first half of the season, with one omission being the third round champions league second leg against Cluj (which Celtic lost), Callum McGregor playing in that role instead that day. Early reports were reasonable, and many thought he showed some good value.

Bolingoli along with Hatem & Jullien jump started their Celtic careers at Ibrox, in an excellent 2-0 victory. Boli assisted Edouard for Celtic first in the ‘revenge’ Europa League group match against Cluj.

A knee injury against Hibernian in the semi-finals of the Scottish league cup hampered his run in the team, and returned six weeks later against Hibernian in the Scottish Premiership. Bolingoli then started all games to the winter break but looked considerably off form than before his knee injury, and it culminated into a poor performance on 29th December 2020 v Sevco with Celtic losing to them at home for the first time ever.

The disappointing performance v Sevco didn’t help his case, and Celtic at that point had fallen behind Sevco for the league title. Individually & collectively the players were poor, and Boli had struggled in defence & attacking wise. He was very timid that day when really that was a day to show his worth.

In general, Boli’s first touch & concentration at times needed addressing. He had pace and you could see his efforts, but those with faith in him were sadly diminishing in numbers. His defensive abilities were severely lacking and often put pressure on his fellow colleagues in key matches. There were questions marks from some of his development too at Celtic, and he seemed to be going backwards whilst the youth players coming in were pushing forward. Bolingoli was himself still young and had to build on what he had.

Too often, his positional sense & tactical awareness were non-existent. Greg Taylor & even the makeshift Johnny Hayes were seen as better defenders than the erratic Belgian despite the early positive opinions on him by many.

Since the winter break in January 2020, a change in formation (3-5-2) was implemented and Greg Taylor was preferred at left back. This was to see Boli win only one solitary appearance thereafter, a match against Clyde in the 5th round of the Scottish Cup, but he did provide an assist for Ntcham for the opening goal in a 3-0 victory. The irony is that the change of formation could have likely suited Boli more than Taylor, as it was more attacking & less defensive, but it was up to Boli to be a professional and fight to win back that first team slot.

Then the coronavirus pandemic hit globally in around March 2020, and every football season ended early. Celtic were rightly awarded the league so achieved the coveted nine-in-a-row, and Bolingoli should take some pride for his part in this achievement for the past season despite his difficult time adapting to Scottish football.

In the new environment, everyone should have been taking precautionary measures, but Bolingoli was to make a poor name for himself nationally & even beyond.

The Covid-19 Pandemic & Boli gone ‘Rogue’
In August 2020, just a week after Scottish football had been slating a group of ex-Aberdeen players for going out in the town when the COVID-19 pandemic was occurring, with a spike in Aberdeen, all footballers were doubly warned to err on the side of caution and take extra pre-cautions. So what did Bolingoli do? He took a sneaky holiday to Spain (which itself had endured a catastrophic time with COVID-19), then failed to self-isolate and put all of Scottish football at threat of closure. The club & coaching staff were unaware of his escapade, and Bolingoli hadn’t self-isolated for 14 days yet played in an intervening match v Kilmarnock (he was subbed on).

Words alone can’t describe fully the genuine outrage by all across the Celtic support and the club, as so many had made sacrifices to help get the game going again, not least supporters who were paying for season tickets despite not being permitted to go to the matches at the stadium. The online wits said it was no surprise to see Bolingoli out of position off the field as much as he was on the field, but the repercussions were very serious. There was no way he could plead ignorance. Celtic needed to take action as his big wages came with big responsibilities, no excuses and clearly he had blatantly ignored all warnings & instructions.

The Scottish First Minister made a warning giving Scottish Football a yellow card (for full suspension of the league), and it led to the postponement of the next two league matches for Celtic just as the club had fallen two points behind Sevco at the start of the new 2020/21 season with the club going for ten in a row. He was issued with a fixed penalty notice by the police for breaching quarantine rules with a £480 fine by the police which is standard, and the football authorities brought in more stringent rules to further deter anyone else repeating this. He was punished by the SFA with a 5 match suspension, 2 of which were suspended, didn’t matter a jot.

His career at Celtic was deemed to be over, and for now that fixed smile on his face was gone.

There have been many players who have gone rogue, and some incidents are even celebrated (e.g. Jinky & McAvennie regularly tested the management’s patience with their drinking escapades), but at the end of the day they are all fully responsible for their own actions. Due to the extreme circumstances in this case there were no real parallels to any prior player-club incidents, and Bolingoli had no wriggle room out of this one as previous ‘rogues‘ may have had. No one was laughing here.

Reports claimed that Bolingoli did make a swift public apology, but the majority outwith of his entourage were justifiably cynical and perceived that Bolingoli was apologetic more so as he had been caught rather than for the act itself. Some attributed the dip in form of certain colleagues at Celtic as potentially due to the treatment of Bolingoli.

He was shipped out to Istanbul Basaksehir on loan for 2020/21; few bemoaned his loss, especially as it came a day after Celtic won 5-0 away to Ross County.

Loan spell

To the (slight) surprise of many, his loan spell was at one point reportedly to be cut short by his Turkish club, but it didn’t materialise. Ironically the reports came just a few days after Celtic had gone through a drama of going on an authorised trip to Dubai, only to see one of the players get Covid meaning 13 players plus staff being quarantined. The trip was heavily criticised by all.

He had quite a torrid time away on loan. His side were league title holders but incredibly were to be staring relegation in the face following a collapse in form. Despite a promising start, he suffered a horrendous knee injury that kept him out of action for four months. His return to their first team actually sparked a turnaround to see off relegation but he wasn’t retained.

Short-lived time back at Celtic & the new Ange Postecoglu Era

Boli returned to Celtic with Taylor now the main young player in the right-back slot, but also a new manager to contend with (Ange Postecoglou). Despite winning time in the pre-season friendlies, he was cut out once the season began, despite desperate calls for new full-backs needed in the first team. Any ire against Bolingoli from the board had dissipated but there was little room for his return.

He was though given a very surprise return at left-back in the league match v Livingston in the league in September 2021 due to injuries and squad rotation, which Celtic actually lost 1-0, not that he was to blame and actually played well. Showed that the new manager was willing to give players a chance yet now ironically Ange Postecoglu for the first time was himself under the cosh from supporters after this defeat as the managerial honeymoon period was over.

In truth, Bolingoli was played mostly out of necessity rather than out of charity as left-backs were in short supply, and much to his credit he did give a great performance in a 2-1 win v Motherwell in October 2021, which helped to temper opinion on him.

However, he was increasingly demoted in the pecking order as the manager brought in new players & Celtic youth team graduates into the first team squad, and inevitably Bolingoli’s time was over. Juranovic, Taylor and Scales were seen as the way forward for Celtic. No one questioned it.

In February 2022, outside of the transfer window and out of the blue, he managed to wrangle a transfer away on loan to Russia much to the surprise of everyone. On the same day he signed, sanctions were actioned against Russia by Western countries due to their interventions in Ukraine, and then Russia invaded Ukraine.

The most bizarre part is that daily on the news for weeks there were concerns that Russia was reportedly on course to take military action v Ukraine starting up the biggest armed conflict in Europe since World War Two! If Bolingoli hadn’t been in enough trouble as it was before, but really it was a measure of just how ostracised he had become across the football world that this was now his only option left to play again in the senior game. Some online wits claimed it further demonstrated his sense of ill timing! Across all sport & beyond, ties to any Russian linked sports entity were being cut.

Next thing you know, after only a month his loan move to Russian club FC Ufa had fallen through due to the player being unable to secure a work visa due to the escalating war in Ukraine.

When Celtic lost both on-field full-backs in a match in April 2022, some were asking where Bolingoli was to shore up the squad. It was soon revealed (by himself on Instagram), that he had not returned to Glasgow but was now training alone in Belgium.

Whatever the case, his career at Celtic was now effectively over which was going to be a sore point as Celtic were rejuvenated under Ange Postecoglu, something that any player with aspirations would love to play a part in.

Boli Bolingoli had begun training alone in Belgium, suggesting that there was no way back for him at Celtic, now publicly ostracised from the club. He posted on his Instagram account a video clip of himself running about at Maluka Football Training Centre in Antwerp. The fact that he was training alone and not even in Scotland said it all.

He formally left in July 2022, signing for KV Mechelen (Belgium).

At this point, we generally state that we wished the player the best on his departure (and genuinely do). However, taking in his prior petulant behaviour and actions, we weren’t sure that he would care either way. Regardless, we still wished him no ill going forward and you can’t fault his effort in his last match appearances which were in retrospect too little too late. His personal failings turned out to not even be the worst aspects from the final disastrous season under Neil Lennon. If anything, Bolingoli’s own failings had clearly back-fired as badly on himself to the detriment of his own career.

We all just moved on. Whatever the case, his post-playing career interviews with the social media podcasters were at least going to be quite interesting.

Post-Celtic

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Quotes

“You can’t say no to a club like Celtic.”
Boli Mbombo on signing (July 2019)

“There should be no way back for Bolingoli at Celtic now. If he knowingly went to Spain before the Kilmarnock game and broke quarantine rules he showed he really doesn’t give a sh## about his teammates, the manager and the support… Celtic should get rid immediately”
Chris Sutton after Boli found to have broken COVID-19 protocols for players (Aug 2020)

“The Scottish government says it could call a halt to Scottish football after it was revealed Celtic defender Boli Bolingoli flew to Spain without club knowledge and failed to quarantine on his return.”
BBC (Aug 2020)

Bolingoli, in a report in the Daily Record, said:
“I have made a huge mistake.
“I want to apologise to my manager, my team-mates, the supporters, everyone at Celtic and so many others for letting them down so badly.
“I am guilty of a major error of judgement. I know what I did was wrong and I know that I must now deal with the consequences.”
A club statement read:
“Celtic Football Club has taken its response to Covid-19 extremely seriously and we are pleased that, to date, we have recorded no positive tests.
“Our staff have given so much in this area, working tirelessly to ensure that all players and other club personnel are safe, fully aware of their own responsibilities and familiar with all guidance and protocols.
“Safety must always be our priority. Clearly, a full investigation will now take place and the club will take all appropriate action.
“Subsequent to the player’s return, he has recorded two negative tests in the past week.”
Daily Record (Aug 2020)

“The actions of Boli Bolingoli really beggars belief. He’s put the safety of so many in jeopardy, not to mention the football season as a whole. This isn’t simply stupidity this is an absolute disgraceful disregard of so many by one individual.”
BBC pundit Michael Stewart (Aug 2020)

“Bad boy Bolingoli is likely to be sent out on a season long loan, kicking the problem down the road. Informed sources told us yesterday that the player still does not appreciate what all the fuss is about and doesn’t believe he did anything wrong in heading to Spain for a sleep-over at the beginning of last week. Remorse levels are at nil apparently.”
TheCelticStar (13 Aug 2020) link: https://thecelticstar.com/5m-ajeti-signing-today-toney-and-new-left-back-targeted-as-unrepentant-bolingoli-loan-move-planned/

“You had the Bolingoli incident at the start of the season. We said ‘don’t leave Glasgow’ and he gets on a flight to Spain for a day. And then he comes back and says ‘I didn’t go to Spain, I went to Belgium’. He said ‘I went to Andorra and then I drove over the border to Belgium to see my family’. And then two hours later he rings me and says ‘actually, I went to Marbella for the day’.”
Neil Lennon (2023)

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Playing Career

Honours with Celtic

Pictures

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KDS

• First Thread (started 2019)

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Articles

Boli Bolingoli-Mbombo: You can’t say no to a club like Celtic

http://www.celticfc.net/news/16402

AFTER committing the next four years of his career to Paradise, new Bhoy Boli Bolingoli-Mbombo said he’s delighted to be part of the Celtic Family and can’t wait to hit the ground running in Glasgow.

The 24-year-old left-sided player joins from Austrian top-flight outfit Rapid Vienna, and explained he was immediately keen to move to Scotland as soon as he became aware of Celtic’s interest.

“It feels great to have signed for Celtic,” he said. “It feels amazing, actually, to be part of the Celtic Family. I’m happy to be here at this club, and hopefully I can help win more titles and trophies. This club wants to continue breaking records, and hopefully we can do that in the future together.

“I heard last week that the club were interested in me, they contacted my agent, and I said yes immediately. You can’t say no to a club like Celtic.”

Interestingly, Bolingoli-Mbombo made his Rapid debut in a friendly against Celtic in the summer of 2017. Now, two years on, the Belgian swaps Vienna’s green and white for the Hoops – following in the footsteps of Belgian ex-Celts Joos Valgaeren, Jason Denayer and Dedryck Boyata. Bolingoli-Mbombo also comes from a football family – his brother, Emeraude, plays for Belgian side, SC Eendracht Aalst, while his cousins, Jordan and Romelu Lukaku, play for Lazio and Manchester United respectively – and he’s now fully-focused on linking up with his new teammates, working hard on the training pitch and, ultimately, winning trophies.

He added: “Celtic have always had great players and, of course, they’ve had a number of great Belgians too. Dedryck Boyata is one of them, and I’m happy to follow in a similar path.

He had a positive influence on this club and hopefully I can do the same. I’m fast, and I use my skills and my speed on the left side. I love to play football and I enjoy my football.

“I can’t wait to play at Celtic Park in front of 60,000 fans, for sure, that’s what I’ve been dreaming about, to play in the stadium, to play in that atmosphere. There was a great atmosphere at Rapid Vienna’s games, but I think that it could be double, maybe triple that atmosphere here.

“I can’t wait to play in this beautiful stadium, in the same colours – I must love green and white. I cannot wait!

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Coronavirus: Celtic’s Boli Bolingoli apologises over quarantine breach

Aug 2020
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-53733180
The Scottish government is warning it could call a halt to football after a Celtic player apologised for breaching coronavirus rules.

Boli Bolingoli has admitted he played in Sunday’s match against Kilmarnock despite having recently returned from Spain without quarantining.

The Celtic defender said he was “guilty of an error of judgement”.

The breach comes after eight Aberdeen players apologised for visiting a bar at the centre of a Covid-19 outbreak.

Two of the players later tested positive for the virus, while six are currently self-isolating.

In a statement, Bolingoli said he wanted to apologise to his manager, team mates, supporters, “and so many others for letting them down so badly”.

‘What I did was wrong’

He added: “I am guilty of a major error of judgement. I know what I did was wrong and I know that I must now deal with the consequences.”

Celtic FC said a full investigation was under way into the incident .

The club said it took its response to Covid-19 “extremely seriously” and that, to date, it had not recorded any positive tests.

In a statement, the Scottish government said it was aware of reports of the player having broken quarantine rules last week.

It added: “We are currently in discussion with the club and football governing bodies to establish the facts.

“If confirmed as another serious incident within Scottish football, where protocols have been breached at the risk of wider public health, then the Scottish government will have little choice but to consider whether a pause is now needed in the resumption of the game in Scotland.”