ROME (AP) — When Victor Osimhen led Napoli to its first Serie A title in more than three decades, he began to feel the adoration once reserved only for Diego Maradona in the southern city.
That was little more than a year ago.
Now, Osimhen is locked in limbo with Napoli, which was unable to find a suitable buyer for the high-scoring Nigeria striker in the transfer window that closed across Europe’s five biggest leagues on Friday.
Having assumed that he would have landed with a new club by now, Osimhen has been left off Napoli’s squad in recent weeks and has not been training with the club.
Unless a Saudi Arabian club comes up with an offer, the reigning African player of the year might be left in this undesirable position for months — until the next transfer window opens in January.
Both sides are to blame.
Napoli reportedly received big offers for Osimhen a year ago but club president Aurelio De Laurentiis encouraged him to stay and began negotiating a contract extension that eventually more than doubled his salary.
Then last September, an irate Osimhen deleted almost all pictures of himself in Napoli’s shirt from his social media accounts after the club posted a mocking video of him online. The video appeared to make fun of Osimhen’s penalty-taking skills after he missed a spot kick in a draw at Bologna.
Napoli later deleted the video and apologized.
The extension was signed in December, a deal linking Osimhen to Napoli through 2025-2026. His salary was increased to 11 million euros ($12 million) per season and a release clause of 130 million euros ($144 million) was inserted into the deal.
While Osimhen scored 26 goals when Napoli won Serie A in 2023, he has consistently been slowed by injuries throughout his career and no club has come close to paying the release clause in its entirety. His hefty salary has also been a deterrent.
Saudi Arabian club Al-Ahli reportedly came close to signing Osimhen a few days ago but then opted to acquire Ivan Toney instead from Brentford with a reported transfer fee of $52 million.
Whether it was Osimhen’s long-stated desire to play in the English Premier League or not that broke up the Al-Ahli deal remains unclear. Osimhen’s agent was also dealing with Chelsea, which made a reported offer of 6 million euros ($6.6 million) that was deemed too low.
The Saudi Arabian league’s transfer window doesn’t close until Monday and the Turkish league window is open through Sept. 13 but Osimhen’s options are dwindling.
What’s more is that Napoli already replaced Osimhen by announcing the signing of Romelu Lukaku from Chelsea on Thursday — reuniting the Belgium striker with coach Antonio Conte after the pair won Serie A at Inter Milan.
At 25, Osimhen still has a lot of years left to play top-level soccer. Known for his aerial prowess and black face mask, he has scored a total of 76 goals in 133 matches across all competitions for Napoli since joining the squad in a club-record 70 million euro transfer ($77 million) four years ago.
Osimhen grew frustrated last season when Napoli finished 10th during its title defense — a campaign in which he scored 15 Serie A goals.
Now he’s not scoring any goals. Or playing at all.
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