The Nigeria Football Federation has expressed joy at the honour bestowed on veteran sports journalist Kunle Solaja by FIFA for covering nine senior World Cups, including the ongoing tournament in Qatar.
“The Nigeria Football Federation has congratulated foremost journalist, prolific author and respected diarist, Mr. Kunle Solaja, on the occasion of his being honoured by world football-governing body FIFA in Doha, Qatar,” NFF said in a statement yesterday.
“Alongside 81 other journalists of repute who have attended and reported at nearly a score of the quadrennial global football fiesta and other glamour tournaments, Solaja, a fomer Sports Editor of Concord Newspapers and the Guardian Newspapers, was awarded a certificate of achievement and a replica of the World Cup trophy, presented by Brazilian legend Ronaldo.”
Solaja, who is at present the chief executive of online sports publication, www.sportsvillagesquare.com, was one of only two Africans on the list, the other being South African Mark Gleeson.
“Today, we are proud to congratulate and celebrate one of our own, Mr. Kunle Solaja, for the honour bestowed on him by FIFA. To attend nine FIFA World Cup finals is not a joke. Mr. Solaja is a man competent, diligent and passionate about his trade, and we join FIFA to celebrate him as an illustrious servant of the beautiful game,” NFF General Secretary, Dr. Mohammed Sanusi, said in Abuja.
The certificate of achievement was jointly signed by FIFA President Gianni Infantino and President of AIPS (the global umbrella body for sports writers), Gianni Merlo.
The star of the ceremony in Doha yesterday was 88-year-old Enrique Macaya Márquez, an Argentine freelancer who is covering his 17th FIFA World Cup in Qatar, and whose tally is one more than Uruguayan Diego Lucero, who before his death in 1995, had covered every FIFA World Cup tournament between 1930 and 1994.
Solaja has been covering the World Cup since 1986 in Mexico, and he has since attended the finals in Italy in 1990, USA in 1994, France in 1998, Korea/Japan in 2002, Germany in 2006, South Africa in 2010, Brazil in 2014 and Russia in 2018.
Apart from sports writing, Solaja in an author who has written four books on Nigerian football, namely Super Eagles…Through The Ages, Going For Goals…Unfolding Nigerian Football’s Hidden Stories, Super Eagles @70…Soaring on The Wings and TESILIMI ‘THUNDER’ BALOGUN…The Making Of A Legend.
