Events on Sunday confirmed what had been in the works: Victor Osimhen will not be spending his prime years in Saudi Arabia, and will not be gracing the Club World Cup this summer.
For fans of Al Hilal, it has come as a shock: the Saudi giants put up a king’s ransom in proposed wages, and had new manager Simone Inzaghi personally reach out to the Nigeria international. The pitch, however, was insufficient, an outcome that will conversely please Super Eagles fans everywhere.
While it remains to be seen where Osimhen will wind up, he nevertheless has all summer to decide, with no deadline hanging over his head. That said, if he is to arrive at the correct decision, there are a couple of things he needs to do. These are not necessarily rocket science, but someone has to say it, right?
Victor Osimhen's Al-Hilal rejection makes his future an open race. European suitors had felt for months that Saudi was his most likely destination.
Al-Hilal made multiple offers, and Simone Inzaghi was even part of the pitch.
However, no green light despite a €75m package in… pic.twitter.com/2MutvFPEK1
— Ben Jacobs (@JacobsBen) June 8, 2025
Take ‘Brand Osimhen’ more seriously
In fairness, this is not unique to Osimhen. It is very much a problem for Nigerian footballers as a whole, and part of it down to the humble, underprivileged upbringings many of them had to weather in order to succeed.
Due to the country’s lack of structure when it comes to football development, there is a sense for too many of them that success is completely a matter of chance. As a result, there is little deliberation to their actions when they are in the big time, and they can often be rash, uncouth or unprofessional, both in their private lives and in their dealings with the public.
Osimhen is, at worst, a top five centre-forward in the world. He needs to act like it: keep his head down, put professionals in charge of his affairs, and allow them to brand and promote him the right way. The fact that he has not deemed this important is, in part, the reason he is in this mess to begin with.
Get a smaller, tighter circle
This is a touchy one, but it has to be said. There is a thin line between staying down-to-earth and having an open-door policy. As a superstar on a certain scale, associations, especially those which are made public, matter: when those perceived to be in your circle speak on something that concerns you, due to their access, they are believed to be speaking your counsel on that issue.
In Osimhen’s case, this problem is magnified by the fact that those with whom he associates are online personalities themselves. Not only is virality their chief aspiration, but the access they have is also social currency that must be flaunted. This is how you wind up with Instagram influencers weighing in on your affairs, making categorical statements and fostering the sense that a player is more trouble than he is worth.
By all means, have friends. But either get them to not speak on your behalf, or thin out the soup a little bit.
Be realistic
His refusal to sign with Al Hilal has now made clear that money is not Osimhen’s main motivation, contrary to the rhetoric of his traducers. Now that myth has been put to bed, the next step is for the 26-year-old to understand the reality of his situation.
By most accounts (the player has not himself made his demands public, nor should he necessarily), he is looking for a yearly salary of £9.5 million net – that is, after taxes. By publicly available information on tax laws in, say, the United Kingdom, that would come out to £406,000 per week, which would make him the second-highest paid footballer in the Premier League, behind only Erling Haaland.
We can talk till the cows come home about whether or not Osimhen deserves that much, with points on both sides of the argument – it is a lot more nuanced than most like to admit. However, the player has to understand that his valuation of his own worth is not the sole factor here. There are not a lot of clubs that can pay that much for anyone, however proven they are. Again, that would be roughly what Mohamed Salah currently earns at Liverpool with an improved contract.
While it would be wrong to demand that the 2023 CAF Player of the Year lower his salary demands, if he indeed wishes to remain in Europe, he will absolutely need to reconsider.
