Albian Ajeti, born on 26 February 1997 (age 29), is a Swiss striker now with Lugano, where he wears the number 10 shirt. His career has taken in England, Scotland and Turkey, but it is Basel that has given it most of its shape.
Ajeti came through at Basel and, after loan football helped harden up his early development, he made his most convincing mark there. Across 10 seasons with the club he has made 141 league appearances and scored 47 league goals. His strongest campaign came in 2017–18, when he scored 14 times in 25 league appearances.
That Basel form took him to West Ham United, and Celtic signed him from the London club in August 2020 for around £4.5m. It was a sizeable outlay for a striker expected to add penalty-box certainty, but his Celtic spell never became the main part of his career. In September 2023 he left for Gaziantep in a deal worth around £500,000.
After Turkey, Ajeti’s career moved back towards more familiar ground. He had another spell at Basel and, in 2026–27, made two league appearances there before joining Lugano, where he has started with seven league appearances and three goals.
Ajeti’s career is best read through Basel: the club where he developed, produced his best league season, and built the bulk of his senior record. Celtic was a notable stop, and an expensive one, but not the spell that defines him.
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