Posted by Amarachi on Sat 12th Apr, 2025 - tori.ng
He claimed that his football career took him to South Africa and he was among the next generation footballers who were supposed to take over from the Olympic gold Super Eagles team which included of Austin Jay Jay Okocha and Nwankwo Kanu.
Popular Nigerian singer, Kingsley Okonkwo, aka Kcee, has revealed that he used to be a professional soccer player but turned to his second love, music, over failure to secure sponsorship for his football career.
In a conversation with podcaster, Temisan Emmanuel, the ‘Limpopo’ hitmaker shared that played for Nigerian league side, Julius Berger FC, and Puma FC in the 90s.
He claimed that his football career took him to South Africa and he was among the next generation footballers who were supposed to take over from the Olympic gold Super Eagles team which included of Austin Jay Jay Okocha and Nwankwo Kanu.
He explained that he switched to music after his football career suffered setbacks due to a lack of sponsorship.
Kcee said, “The first time I travelled out of this country was football. I was playing for Julius Berger. I played for Puma. The first time I went to South Africa was soccer. That was before music.
“I was a very young boy. This was in the middle 90s. I was a teenager then. Jay Jay [Okocha] and Kanu were a set before me. After them, we would have been like the people to take over Super Eagles.”
He added, “When I found out that it was difficult to take my football career to the next level, I picked up my next love, music. I was running both of them side by side. In the course of that, I won Star Quest talent hunt and I started making money. So, I had to drop one for one. That was why I quit football.”