Osimhen Under Investigation In France

Ligue 1 Champions Lille have taken action over the transfer of Nigerian international Victor Osimhen to Serie A club Napoli.

According to investigators in France, the reported record African transfer was perhaps worth half of the supposed €81m fee.

The deal was done for a reported €71m plus up to €10m in bonuses after weeks of negotiations.

That included the cost of four players who Napoli handed over to Lille – Orestis Karnezis, youth team players Claudio Manzi, Ciro Palmieri and Luigi Liguori.

It was always considered somewhat surprising that the unknown teenagers were given such high transfer market ratings as part of the deal, up to €20-30m in total.

Furthermore, the teenagers never actually played for Lille, immediately loaned out to Fermana in Serie C.

As a result, Lille terminated their contracts by mutual consent, essentially letting them walk away as free agents.

French daily, L’Equipe had already reported in June that French authorities were investigating the Osimhen transfer, although sources at Napoli remained confident it was an issue with Lille’s accounting rather than their own.

It is suspected that Napoli paid closer to €40m for Osimhen.