During his career he played as a striker from 1990 until 2008 notably for Aston Villa, PSV Eindhoven, Coventry City and the Ghana national football team.

[1] He also played for Anderlecht, Venezia, Boca Juniors, Unión Santa Fe, Ankaragücü, União Leiria, Greuther Fürth, Shandong Luneng, Al-Nassr, Asante Kotoko and Jomo Cosmos.

Lamptey often refused to spend the nights home and frequently skipped school, only finding refuge in football.

Soon, he began to excel in this sport, despite his father heckling him and hurling verbal abuse from the sidelines whenever he watched his son play football.

Lamptey found refuge in a Muslim football camp and converted from Christianity to Islam to qualify for entry.

[5] His goal for Anderlecht against Roma in March 1991 in the UEFA Cup still holds the record of the youngest goalscorer in European club tournament history.

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.

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.

A major emotional blow was also the fact that Lamptey wanted to bury his son in Ghana, but the authorities declined.

After unsuccessful stints at Ankaragücü and União Leiria, Lamptey got himself a new German player agent who transferred him to SpVgg Greuther Fürth.

[16] Lamptey later stated that although appreciated, Pelé's praise made life far harder for him, since everyone therefore had extremely high expectations of him that he was not always able to fulfill.

[17] The adidas Golden Ball could only go to one of the members of the victorious Ghanaian side, and so it was, with Lamptey taking home a very special souvenir from his Italian sojourn.

His fast feet, speed of thought, and clever interplay with captain Alex Opoku and fellow midfielders Mohammed Gargo and Emmanuel Duah were on display for all to see.

[23] Ghana, who had the youngest team by far in the competition (the average age of the squad was 18.8 years), were surprise bronze medallists, becoming the first African nation to earn a medal.

[5] He also founded Glow-lamp International School, so as to give back to society and ensure than children have the chance to learn to read and write: something he was never able to do.

Appiah filed for an appeal in court, requesting 50% of his assets in the divorce including occupancy at the couple's East Legon apartment, but was refused by the judge.