Marked for Chikamso Amaefula
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Nov 2026
Chikamso Amaefula damages knee ligaments — 21 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 21 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad9 Nov 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market9 Nov 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad2 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Chikamso Amaefula
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Kun Khalifat lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market2 Nov 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kun Khalifat can pretend not to have heard.
Squad2 Nov 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad26 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Chikamso Amaefula
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Kun Khalifat lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market26 Oct 2026
Shuaibu Olofu hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kun Khalifat can pretend not to have heard.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Ékené Awazie was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Chikamso Amaefula
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Kun Khalifat lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Michael Akano: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Kun Khalifat have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Ékené Awazie in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kun Khalifat this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market5 Oct 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Kun Khalifat, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Ékené Awazie in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kun Khalifat this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Gabriel Lekan falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Wages eat 216% of everything Kun Khalifat earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Razak Abdullah and Kun Khalifat agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Chukwuma Ukoh, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market7 Sep 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Kun Khalifat, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match5 Sep 2026
5 matches without a win for Kun Khalifat
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Kun Khalifat are no longer polite ones.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Ekene Emmanuel gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ekene Emmanuel has just signed for Kun Khalifat, and for once the answer mattered.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 24 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Ékené Awazie in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kun Khalifat this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Gabriel Lekan falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad7 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Chikamso Amaefula, and the manager let it.
Market7 Sep 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Wages eat 94% of everything Kun Khalifat earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market10 Aug 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kun Khalifat can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Alex Amaefula commits to Kun Khalifat for another 4 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Ékené Awazie was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Chinonso Romanus falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Akpan Nsikak-Abong, and the manager let it.
Match8 Aug 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Market10 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Market10 Aug 2026
Still no offer on the table, and Chinonso Romanus’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.