Taiwo Awoniyi Football Profile: From Ilorin to Coventry City, Super Eagles Caps and Net Worth

Taiwo Awoniyi is a Nigeria striker who joined Coventry City from Nottingham Forest on 17 August 2026, for a fee media reports put at about £9m and that neither club has confirmed. Taiwo Micheal Awoniyi, born in Ilorin on 12 August 1997, had 10 senior caps and 2 goals for the Super Eagles by the Nigerian press count of August 2026, while Wikipedia's infobox lists 12. In South Africa, soccer followers may recognise Awoniyi through his Liverpool connection and his decisive Nottingham Forest goal against Arsenal in May 2023.

His career connects Ilorin, Nigeria's youth titles and spells in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and England. The reported transfer fees trace those moves, but they do not establish his personal wealth.

Who Is Taiwo Awoniyi?

Taiwo Awoniyi is a centre forward from Ilorin, the capital of Kwara State, born on 12 August 1997. He came through the Golden Eaglets and the Flying Eagles before Liverpool signed him at 18. The full name people search for is Taiwo Micheal Awoniyi, with that spelling of Micheal.

The short version is this: six years as a Liverpool player without a first team appearance, a record at Union Berlin, the goal of his life for Nottingham Forest, then a move to Coventry City in August 2026. Kenyan, Ghanaian and South African readers mostly know him from the Premier League, where he made 90 appearances and scored 21 goals for Forest between 2022 and 2026. Nigerian readers know him as a Super Eagles striker who has spent much of his international career competing with Victor Osimhen for the same shirt.

The Road From Ilorin: Every Club and Every Reported Fee

Liverpool signed Awoniyi on 31 August 2015 for a reported £400,000, and loaned him out straight away. What followed was seven loan spells at six clubs: FSV Frankfurt in 2015-16, NEC in 2016-17, Mouscron in 2017-18, Gent in 2018-19, a return to Mouscron in 2019, Mainz 05 in 2019-20 and Union Berlin in 2020-21. It could be argued it was the football version of a youth service posting, with new towns and dressing rooms shaping his development while he remained a Liverpool player.

Union Berlin made the move permanent in July 2021 for a reported £6.5m.

Nottingham Forest signed him in June 2022 on a five year deal for a reported £17m, which was a club record at the time. Forest had just been promoted, and a striker who had scored 15 Bundesliga goals the season before was exactly the kind of signing a newly promoted side builds around.

Coventry City announced his signing from Forest on 17 August 2026, with media reports putting the fee at about £9m ($12m), unconfirmed by the clubs. The £17m was Forest paying Union in 2022, and the £9m is Coventry paying Forest in 2026. In August 2026, Frank Onyeka was already at Coventry when Awoniyi arrived, giving Nigerian supporters two Super Eagles at one club to follow.

Why Did Awoniyi Leave Liverpool Without Playing?

Awoniyi spent his Liverpool years on loan in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium without making a first team appearance for the English club. Those spells took him to six clubs before Union Berlin signed him permanently in July 2021, giving him continuity after his loan there in 2020-21.

The turn came in Belgium. Across his spells at Mouscron he scored a career best 21 goals in 47 appearances, and that is where he stopped looking like a promising loanee and started looking like a finished striker. So, if you are wondering when the Awoniyi most fans know first appeared, the answer is Mouscron, not Berlin.

What Does Awoniyi Do on the Pitch?

Awoniyi is a central striker who leads the line, holds the ball up for runners and attacks crosses in the box. In my opinion, his best quality is that he makes a team better without needing the ball every minute, because his running stretches defenders and his strength in the air gives a side a direct option when the passing game is not working. He is the striker you pick when you want to defend a lead as well as score.

His Union Berlin peak shows it best. In 2021-22 he scored 15 Bundesliga goals in 31 games, and 20 in all competitions, as Union finished fifth, the club's highest Bundesliga finish to that point. He reached 17 Bundesliga goals for the club in 2022, passing Max Kruse as Union's record Bundesliga scorer, a record set in 2022.

The defining match, though, is Forest 1 Arsenal 0 in May 2023. Awoniyi scored the winner, and the result mathematically secured Forest's survival in their first Premier League season since promotion, a season in which he scored 10 league goals. That winner gave Nigerian supporters a lasting moment from his Forest career.

In May 2025 he had abdominal surgery after colliding with a post, and he was placed in an induced coma. His goals and minutes can be followed through the player modules, alongside the career milestones described here.

Awoniyi and the Super Eagles: Youth Titles, the Sudan Goal and the Caps Module

Awoniyi's international story starts with trophies. He won the FIFA Under 17 World Cup with the Golden Eaglets in 2013, and the African Under 20 Championship with the Flying Eagles in 2015. Those two titles established his youth international pedigree before his senior Nigeria career.

His first senior goal came against Sudan at the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations, and his second came in a qualifier against São Tomé and Príncipe. Both count among the goals that mattered, the Sudan one especially, because a goal at a finals tournament is the one Nigerian supporters remember when a squad is announced.

How many caps does he have? Premium Times counted 10 caps and 2 goals in August 2026, before his September recall, while Wikipedia's infobox lists 12. We quote the Premium Times figure, with its date, because it comes from Nigerian press reporting on his Coventry move, and the caps module carries the running total as it changes. If the two numbers differ when you read this, the module is the one to trust.

His place has come and gone. He was left out of the 2025 AFCON squad in Morocco, then in September 2026 head coach Eric Chelle called him up to replace the injured Victor Osimhen for Nigeria's 2027 AFCON qualifiers. That recall added another chapter to a Nigeria career that began with youth international success.

Taiwo Awoniyi net worth

Available reporting does not establish how much wealth Awoniyi personally holds. Afrik-Foot's published salary estimate in 2026 was about £50,000 a week, roughly £2.6m a year. That is an estimate, not a figure from his contract or his accounts. No endorsement figures have been reported by any qualifying outlet, so we do not give one.

Why do the net worth numbers online vary so widely? The figures that circulate come without a named source, many date from his Union Berlin years, and several treat transfer fees as if they were his own money. We have chosen not to repeat any of them, because they do not provide a verifiable basis for estimating his wealth.

Here is the working that does hold up. The reported fees on his career add up to about £32.9m: £400,000 from Liverpool in 2015, £6.5m from Union to Liverpool in 2021, £17m from Forest to Union in 2022 and about £9m from Coventry to Forest in 2026. Every one of those fees went to a club, not to the player.

A wage is not a net worth either. A salary estimate tells you what a club is reported to pay, not what a player keeps after spending, family support, agents and investments, none of which are public. For readers converting into naira, shillings, rand or cedis, take the £50,000 weekly estimate and convert it at the day's rate, because exchange rates move faster than any footballer's contract.

How to Watch Awoniyi From Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana and Uganda

Coventry's matches following Awoniyi's August 2026 arrival and his Nigeria appearances offer two routes for following his football. Consult the where to watch module for the broadcaster attached to each fixture in your country, as coverage can change between seasons.

For Awoniyi's English fixtures, account for Britain's seasonal clock change when reading the kick off time. During British winter, a UK start at 15:00 corresponds to GMT 15:00, WAT 16:00, SAST 17:00 and EAT 18:00. During British summer, that UK start at 15:00 corresponds instead to GMT 14:00, WAT 15:00, SAST 16:00 and EAT 17:00. Accra follows GMT, Lagos uses WAT, Johannesburg uses SAST, and Nairobi and Kampala share EAT.

For Super Eagles matches, consult the Nigeria team fixtures and squad module. In August 2026, Onyeka and Awoniyi were both at Coventry, giving Nigerian fans a shared club connection to follow. To compare Awoniyi with other forwards from the continent, explore the African footballers profiles and choose your local time zone in the fixtures module.