10 Things You Didn’t Know About Kalusha Bwalya

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  1. Kalusha Bwalya (Great Kalu) is a Zambian former international footballer.
  2. He is Zambia’s eighth-most capped player and third on the list of all-time top goalscorers behind Godfrey Chitalu and Alex Chola.
  3. Kalusha was named African Footballer of the Year in 1988 by the magazine France Football and was nominated for the 1996 FIFA World Player of the Year where he was voted the 12th-best player in the world, the first to be nominated after playing the entire year for a non-European club.
  4. His older brother Benjamin Bwalya played professional football, and his younger brother Joel Bwalya also played for Zambia.
  5. Bwalya was a member of the national squad that participated at the 1988 Olympic Games, making his mark with a most famous hat-trick in a 4–0 victory against Italy.
  6. He was a player-coach during the African 2006 World Cup qualification matches.
  7. Bwalya’s career in Europe began at Cercle Brugge in Belgium.
  8. Bwalya currently serves as a standing committee member at FIFA and the Confederation of African Football and as of 2008 was the president of the Football Association of Zambia from 2008 to 2016.
  9. Bwalya resigned from his position as the Zambia coach but having served as vice president of the Football Association of Zambia until 2008, he was voted in to be president as of 2008.
  10. He was also one of the ambassadors of the 2010 World Cup which was held in South Africa.