The Kun Khalifat Chronicle
Market4 Jan 2027
Omolabi Owolabi puts it in writing
“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 The request is on a desk at Kun Khalifat, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Daniel Ifeanyichukwu: 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Akpan Nsikak-Abong 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.
Boardroom4 Jan 2027
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Kun Khalifat
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Match2 Jan 2027
Kun Khalifat cannot find the net
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Squad4 Jan 2027
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.
The terraces4 Jan 2027
The crowd has taken to Gabriel Lekan
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Market4 Jan 2027
Sunday Oduya steps up from the Kun Khalifat academy
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Sunday Oduya has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market4 Jan 2027
One of our own: Osayi Abdullahi joins the Kun Khalifat first team
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Osayi Abdullahi is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
In brief
- Market Kun Khalifat promote Umar Simon from within
- Squad No hiding place for Chinonso Romanus
- Player ratings The afternoon belonged to Gabriel Lekan