'Why Sport Matters'
For something that’s supposed to be a bit of fun, Sport has become a very serious business indeed...
Why Sport Matters is not intended as a mere sports documentary - instead, it’s a ground breaking television series investigating the ways in which sport has influenced so many varied spheres of human society the world over. Sport is no longer just a game - it’s a means of expression,
a massively popular form of entertainment and a multi-billion dollar industry...
Leading us on this journey in to the heart of sport is acclaimed sportswriter and performance poet Musa Okwonga. A lively and authoritative guide, Musa represents a fresh and exciting new talent for our audience.
Taking in the whole gamut of world sport, from its ancient origins to its modern day domination, Why Sport Matters will have a truly international focus. Incorporating on-location footage and interviews with some of the biggest names in world sport, the series will appeal to sports fans and enthusiasts the world over.
Musa Okwonga is an acclaimed football writer, poet and musician, whose work has appeared in The Times, The Sunday Times, The New York Times and Prospect Magazine.
His first book, A Cultured Left Foot, was nominated for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award in 2008. On publication it was described by Simon Barnes, the Chief Sports Writer of The Times, as “the season’s most enjoyable book about the game, a wonderfully intelligent, football-soaked attempt to define the indefinable.” In the same year, it was also named No.1 by The Independent in their list of Top Ten Sports Books.
Musa is a member of poetry collective A Poem in between People (PiP) and a co-promoter of PoeJazzi, a night of poetry and music which has been named TimeOut Critic’s Choice No.1 (February 2007) and which received five-star reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2007 and 2008. He has also performed his poetry at the 2008 EU Energy Summit in front of an audience of EU environment and energy ministers.nHe is also a frontman of the five-piece Afrofunk band Benin City, who have performed live on XFM’s John Kennedy Show and BBC3’s The Verb. Benin City recently featured on Sky One’s Soccer AM.
His second book, Will You Manage? - on the subject of what makes a great football manager - was published in August 2010.
Musa was born in Uganda, and educated at Eton College and Oxford University.
