“I used to cry”
Discussion about date of birth: Now Moukoko speaks
12.09.2025 – 11:59 a.m.Reading time: 3 min.
Youssoufa Moukoko is repeatedly accused of being older than stated. The former international now reacted to the years of debate.
Youssoufa Moukoko has publicly commented on the controversy that has been ongoing for years. “I think it surprised me how much people do everything to get attention,” said the 20-year-old to the Danish television station TV 2. “There are people who are incredibly greedy. Maybe one day I will make my own documentary.”
Moukoko was considered a child prodigy for German football for a long time. But as part of his football training at FC St. Pauli and Borussia Dortmund, when he scored numerous goals for the junior teams, there were discussions about his age. The rumors that the exceptional talent could be older when it is claimed did not subside at the beginning of his professional career.
In a TV report that appeared last year, an alleged birth certificate was presented to show the supposedly true age and the original surname Moukokos. The protagonist was also Joseph Moukoko, who had been the footballer of the footballer for years, but suddenly assured the opposite. The BVB, in which Youssoufa Moukoko was under contract until summer, rejected the allegations against the player several times and referred to official documents from German authorities.
“People always try to find out something about me and write a story from it,” said Moukoko, who after a failed loan to Nice since this season has been playing for FC Copenhagen. “In the end I don’t care. You can keep going.”
Nevertheless, the two -time national player also confirms how much the discussion about himself has taken him. “In the past I cried and thought: ‘How do I get out of here?’ And ‘When does it get better?’ “In such difficult times, other people would say” everything is good “, explained Moukoko. “But I want to talk about it loudly. Sometimes you have to learn to call help.”
In Copenhagen, Moukoko seems to have arrived in Germany and France after difficult years and found his football happiness. What has been helping him for a long time is the exchange with a sports psychologist. He has been working with him for several years, talking to him once a week for two hours.
“If you had told me that earlier, I would have replied: ‘I’m not sick’, but now I would actually recommend it to everyone,” said the striker. “I used to eat everything into myself and was very careful when it came to saying how I really felt.”
Moukoko signed a contract in Copenhagen until 2030. In twelve games so far, he scored three goals and one template for his new team. With Borussia Dortmund, he won the DFB Cup in 2021 and took part in the World Cup in Qatar with the German national team in 2022. To date, Moukoko has been considered the youngest Bundesliga player at the age of 16 and a day and at 16 years and 28 days as the youngest Bundesliga shooter of all time.