SUPER EAGLES @70…SOARING ON THE WINGS

Kunle Solaja is back-to-back winner of the Nigeria Media Merit Award in Sports writing for the years 2009 and 2010. He is Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist.

He is the only African journalist to have covered eight consecutive FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ‘90 to Russia 2018.

He is consequently the most imbued with depth of information regarding the Super Eagles’ adventures at the six World Cup finals that the team has featured in.

He watched every minute of the 21 World Cup matches the Super Eagles had played from USA ‘94 to Russia 2018.

Solaja, a multiple award winner, had written two other books on related subject matter – Super Eagles…Through the Ages (2010) and “Going for Goals” (2014). He is a graduate of Mass Communication from the University of Lagos where he obtained a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in 1983 and 1988 respectively. In 2012, he obtained a FIFA/CIES diploma in Sports Management at the Cairo University, Egypt.

A custodian of sports facts and figures, he was the pioneer editor of Nigeria’s first daily football newspaper, SoccerStar which was from the stable of The Sun Publishing Limited.

Before then, he had edited the sports pages of prominent Nigerian publications – National Concord (1989 to 1993) and The Guardian (1997 to 2004).

He was the pioneer editor of the South Africa-based Kick Off magazine in Nigeria. A thorough-bred sports researcher and writer, he thrice won the award for best sports coverage of the Coca-Cola FA Cup in 199, 2004 and 2005.

He had earlier in 1990 won the Lagos NUJ Best Reporter Award and in 2007 won the Sports Writers’ Association of Nigeria award for the Best Columnist.

A well respected sports journalist in Africa, he was one of the top six African journalists invited as a member of Panel of Judges to pick the SuperSport Star of Africa in Nairobi, Kenya in 1998.