‘Yaya Toure! Kolo Toure!’—Football Chant Origin, Video

The chant is one of the most recognisable—and downright hilarious—in the modern game.

Yaya and Kolo Touré shared the pitch at Manchester City. | Getty/Andrew Yates

Long after their boots are hung up, only a select few footballers remain woven into the soundtrack of the English game. To hear your name sung, week after week, in grounds across the country is a rare distinction—one reserved for players who left a mark that went beyond trophies and statistics.

Kolo Touré is one of them. More than a decade on from his retirement, the chant that bears his name still echoes around stadiums and it remains a source of genuine pride for the former Arsenal, Manchester City and Liverpool defender.

“If somebody had told me 15 years ago, ‘Kolo, people will sing your name at every ground in the UK,’ I would have thought they were joking,” Touré once said. “I have never had the chance to thank the people who do that. It touches my heart.”

Yet Kolo is only half of the story. The chant’s second act belongs to his younger brother, Yaya—whose name completes a song that has become one of English football’s most recognisable terrace anthems.

Everyone knows how it goes. But where did it come from, and how did it escape the stands of Manchester City to become a nationwide phenomenon?

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“Yaya Toure! Kolo Toure!” Football Chant Origin

Yaya, Yaya Yaya — Yaya Yaya, Yaya Yaya Touré
Kolo, Kolo Kolo — Kolo Kolo, Kolo Kolo Touré

The stripped-back beat that underpins the Touré brothers’ anthem originates from No Limit, the 1993 techno-dance hit by Belgian-Dutch group 2 Unlimited. The track was a global phenomenon, reaching number one in 35 countries—including the United Kingdom—and its instantly recognisable rhythm proved irresistible to football fans.

Various clubs have toyed with the tune over the years, but it was Manchester City supporters who truly made it their own, forever linking it with Kolo and Yaya Touré during the 2012–13 season.

By the time the chant first emerged in September 2012, the brothers had already played 82 matches together for club and country. Its public debut came ahead of a trip to Stoke City’s bet365 Stadium.

Yaya was in the starting XI, while Kolo watched on as an unused substitute, but that mattered little to the travelling City support. Gathered on the concourses before kick-off, they unleashed what would soon become one of English football’s most infectious terrace anthems—an earworm that would quickly spread far beyond Manchester and the Premier League.

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“Yaya Toure! Kolo Toure!” Football Chant Video

The chant’s origin is often mistakenly linked to a video of well-lubricated City fans performing it — and the accompanying dance—outside a sandwich bar in Madrid, when the Sky Blues faced Real Madrid in the Champions League on Sep. 18, 2012.

In reality, two days before that European tie—which City lost to a 90th-minute winner from Cristiano Ronaldo—James Martin had already posted footage of supporters cheering on the Ivorian brothers at Stoke.

While the clip from the Spanish capital gained far more traction, both videos helped spread the remorselessly catchy chant across the footballing world. By Sep. 22, 2012, it had been formally added to Manchester City’s official anthology of chants.

Three years after its debut, Steven Gerrard was filmed performing a spirited rendition of the chant near the end of his Liverpool career, a club where he had shared the pitch with Kolo Touré for two seasons.

In 2012, the brothers themselves were treated to the chant by the club’s media team. Watching the fan footage, Yaya Touré laughed and remarked: “They drink too much.”

In the background, Kolo mimicked the arm movements of the cheering supporters, joyfully bopping along to the hymn he still hears today.

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