Osimhen Opens Up on Painful Napoli Transfer, Says He Was Forced While Father Was Dying

As his father was in serious condition, Super Eagles forward Victor Osimhen allegedly claimed that agents and club officials forced his 2020 transfer from Lille to Napoli through without getting his full consent.

La Repubblica reported Osimhen’s secret evidence to Italy’s Guardia di Finanza, in which he claimed he was not given access to a draft of his contract and that he felt excluded from the talks between Lille management and Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis.

Although Osimhen’s €70 million transfer was one of the most talked-about transactions of the summer of 2020, it is currently the focus of an Italian financial probe due to allegations of improper accounting.

“My former agent, Jean Gerard, had conveyed genuine interest from Napoli, but he was more concerned with my move than with my father’s condition. I only wanted to know how he was doing at the time, and I didn’t have the mental capacity to consider football,” Osimhen stated, as reported by Punch.

He remembered that Lille president Gerard Lopez and sporting director Luis Campos had invited him to a meeting in Nice, where he was informed that the transfer had already been finalized.

They informed me that there was already a basic deal and that Lille had a good chance because of the epidemic, so I should transfer to Napoli. But I had no idea about that,” he continued.

According to Osimhen, he was devastated when his father died during the talks. I was furious at Lille and my agency for preventing me from seeing him prior to his passing. Without even knowing my father had passed away, they even told me I would have to depart for Naples the following day,” he remarked.

Prior to signing the deal, he said, “He asked me if I had seen the contract, but I hadn’t received anything.”

The 25-year-old finally fired his agent and hired William D’Avila, who, along with Maurizio Micheli of Napoli and other officials, finalized the agreement in July 2020.

In order to conceal the real cost of the transfer, Italian prosecutors are currently looking into whether Napoli and Lille overvalued a number of lesser-known players.

Suspicions over the authenticity of the move were heightened by the fact that three young players—Cisco Palmieri, Luigi Liguori, and Claudio Manzi—were mentioned in the deal but never played for Lille.