Super Eagles and Galatasaray striker Victor Osimhen joined Serie A side Napoli for €70m from LOSC Lille in 2020, Soccernet.ng reports.
The 26-year-old was a part of the Napoli team that won the Scudetto for the first time in 33 years. He was also the league’s highest goal scorer in the 2022/2023 season.
In four years at the club, the 2015 FIFA U-17 World Cup winner scored 76 goals and provided 18 assists in 133 games before joining Galatasaray permanently this summer.
However, an investigation into the striker’s move from LOSC Lille has begun after WhatsApp chats between various figures involved in the agreement were published.
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In the leaked messages, it was confirmed that the Napoli bosses were involved in false accounting over the amount spent on Osimhen.
What happened with Osimhen’s deal to Napoli?
According to the information from La Repúbblica, Lille proposed that they would sell Osimhen to Napoli for around €50m, but the fee rose, with another €20m+ increase in artificially inflated fees for extra players.
With an agreement on inflation reached between the negotiating parties, they opted to include some players to level the playing field. Orestis Karnezis plus three youth team players.
Lille requested Karnezis, valuing the then 35-year-old goalkeeper at €35m. However, the president of the French team cautioned the Napoli broker in the published email:
“You must not write anything. No traces in emails. Say whatever you like in person,” Pompilio [Lille] wrote to Giuntoli [Napoli] in a text message on July 17, 2020.
“This will allow you to pay an inferior price than any other club, but with the necessary nominal value to close the deal.
“At this point, it is of extreme importance that there be no communication about the deal or the price. It would undermine the agreement’s goal and reflect poorly on all of us.”
Karnezis was then later devalued to €15m in the deal, but as Napoli recruited three academy players—Cisco Palmieri, for €7m, Luigi Liguori, and Claudio Manzi, worth €4m each – instead of Ounas, his price dropped to €10m, €7m, and finally €5m.
The market value of the players involved in the deal were inflated. At the time, Karzenis was worth €2.5m on Transfermarkt.
Ultimately, none of the graduates of the Napoli academy made their debut with the French club, and Liguori said in 2021 that he never travelled to Lille.
Instead, these players were immediately loaned out to third and fourth-division teams, before they were eventually released from their contracts.
As a result of these negotiations, Lille’s general manager, Julien Mordacq, upon finding out the details, called for a proper check, writing to the club’s CEO, Marc Ingla.
“It is my duty to warn you regarding the risks associated with this deal, based on the elements I already discussed with you in person.
“Every detail considered ‘strange’ could generate questions on the overall agreements (relative to 5 players) and we’d need to provide some real responses and justification.”
With the emergence of this evidence, the Tribunal in Rome is seeking a trial for false accounting. Rome Prosecutors Lorenzo Del Giudice and Giorgio Ornano have already requested that Napoli President Aurelio De Laurentiis and CEO Andrea Chiavelli stand trial for alleged false accounting between 2019 and 2021.
Was Osimhen aware of the falsified accounts?
Osimhen’s agent at the time was Jean Gerard, and upon the investigation of the case, he spoke about how things unfolded from the striker’s perspective.
“The agent I had before told me that Napoli had a serious interest, but he was only interested in my transfer, whereas my mind at the time was entirely on my father’s health. I just wanted to know how he was doing,” the Frenchman retorted, revealing his account of what Osimhen told him
“Gerard called me to come and meet him in Nice, where we met with Luis Campos and Lille President Gerard Lopez.
“They told me I had to move to Napoli, that there was already an agreement in place and, due to the pandemic, this was a good opportunity for Lille. But I didn’t know about any of it,” Osimhen said in quotes revealed by One Football.
Sadly, a few days after the conversation with his former agent ensued, Osimhen lost his father to the death’s cold hands.
“Following my father’s death, I was very angry with both Lille and my agent, because I didn’t get to see him before he died,” Osimhen continued.
“They had even told me I had to leave the day after for Naples, without even giving me time to deal with the death of my father.
“Out of respect for the Lille President, I went to Naples anyway, but I was not ready to sign anything. I met the coach, who explained the project, and then the day after, President Aurelio De Laurentiis in Capri.
“He told me about the city and the club, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying with (director Cristiano) Giuntoli, because they spoke in Italian.
“He asked me if I had seen the contract yet, but I hadn’t received anything. When I got back to the hotel, I asked my agent if I could see the contract, but he said he didn’t have it.
“I was stunned because the President told me that he did. Eventually, he showed me a piece of paper with some pseudo-agreement with Napoli.
“I got angry and wanted to return to France. I asked Lopez for a week to rest and went to Paris. Once I returned to Lille, I decided to break off my working relationship with that agent,” Osimhen concluded.
Osimhen eventually parted ways with Gerard and started working with Italian agent Roberto Calenda. As of December 2024, the former VfL Wolfsburg striker also parted ways with Calenda.
While a trial is set to ensue, it appears Osimhen wasn’t fully aware of the details of the contract that took him from France to Naples, and it probably played out in the further renewals he penned at the club, and his long-drawn-out exit process.