Femi Azeez: 3 Premier League records within reach for Brighton’s newboy

Super Eagles winger Femi Azeez completed a deadline-day move to Brighton & Hove Albion from Millwall in a deal worth up to £15 million, Afrik-Foot reports.

The 25-year-old will join the Seagulls for an initial fee of £12.5 million with performance-related add-ons pushing the total package past £15 million, and has signed a four-year contract until June 2030 with the club holding an option to extend for a further 12 months.

The switch caps a remarkable seven-year rise for the Westminster-born winger, who was released by Watford’s academy at 14 before rebuilding his career after a move to Reading and then Millwall, where he was named in the PFA Championship Team of the Year for 2025/26 after scoring 11 goals and providing seven assists.

At Brighton, Azeez joins the same club at which Leon Balogun became the first Nigerian to score a Premier League goal for the Seagulls back in 2018, and steps into a squad already featuring fellow Super Eagles winger Zadok Yohanna.

3 records Femi Azeez could break at Brighton

1. First Nigerian attacker to score a Premier League goal for Brighton

Leon Balogun scored the first Nigerian Premier League goal in Brighton’s history when he headed home against West Ham United at the Amex Stadium in February 2018.

That opens the door for Azeez to claim a narrower but still meaningful first record by being the first Nigerian outfield attacker, rather than a defender, to score a top-flight goal for the Seagulls.

Every Nigerian goal for Brighton in the Premier League to date has come from central defence. A goal from open play by a Nigerian winger or forward would be a new category entirely, and one that Azeez, as the more experienced of Brighton’s two current Nigerian attackers, is positioned to claim before Zadok Yohanna gets there.

2. Most goals by a Nigerian in a debut Premier League season

The Nigerian record for goals in a debut Premier League season belongs to Yakubu Aiyegbeni, who scored 16 in 32 appearances for Portsmouth in the 2003/04 campaign after arriving from Maccabi Haifa.

The Yak’s opening-year tally has stood for more than two decades and remains the standard against which every Nigerian import to the English top flight is measured. Osaze Odemwingie came close, but could only hit 15 goals in his debut campaign with West Bromwich Albion.

16 is the number Azeez would need to eclipse to write his own name into Nigerian Premier League folklore in year one.

It is a very difficult target given his role at Brighton is likely to involve competition from Yankuba Minteh, Ibrahim Osman and Yohanna for game time, but a return of 11 goals in the Championship last season means the underlying goal threat exists.

3. First Nigerian to reach double figures in Premier League goals for Brighton

Leon Balogun’s Premier League scoring return for Brighton was one goal across two seasons, meaning the ceiling for a Nigerian goal-scoring record at the Amex is low.

10 Premier League goals in a Brighton shirt would more than quadruple the entire Nigerian output ever recorded at the club.

On Azeez’s four-year contract, plus the club option that could extend it to five seasons, the mark is a floor rather than a ceiling for a successful spell in East Sussex.

Whether he breaks one, two or all three will decide how his Brighton chapter is remembered, but the seven-year climb from Northwood’s Southern League Division One Central side to a £15 million signing at the Amex has already delivered an intriguing story of a footballer who never gave up on his dreams.