Victor Osimhen will not go to Saudi Arabia
Giovanni Manna, the sporting director of Napoli, spoke about Victor Osimhen on DAZN. The situation is very clear from the Italian club’s perspective.
It was on the sidelines of the match between Napoli and Parma this Saturday evening that Napoli’s sporting director, Giovanni Manna, addressed a question regarding Nigerian striker Victor Osimhen, who was not transferred after the European transfer window closed. Initially linked with PSG and then Chelsea, Osimhen turned down the offer from the English club. However, with two days left before the end of the Saudi Arabian transfer window, there was still hope at Napoli that the striker might move to the Saudi Pro League, especially after news emerged that he had been removed from the club’s squad list and would lose his jersey number to Romelu Lukaku. Despite this, Giovanni Manna does not believe in the imminent departure of the player who significantly contributed to Napoli‘s Scudetto win last season.
In an interview with DAZN, Napoli’s sporting director Giovanni Manna was very clear about the situation. “The situation has been clear since the end of last season. Victor [Osimhen] expressed his absolute desire not to stay and not to play for Napoli anymore, and we tried to help him. Then, there was an offer, we thought we had finalized the negotiations, but things did not go well. We acquired Lukaku, kept Raspadori and Simeone, and it wasn’t easy at that moment to maintain our consistency because he [Osimhen] had expressed his desire not to play. So, we made other choices. The transfer market is still open, there are many options, but I don’t think Victor will go to Saudi Arabia before the window closes. We were expecting Victor’s sale to finance these operations, but the sale didn’t happen, and the president took on the responsibility of investing to start over. He took the business risk; it was incredible,” Giovanni Manna explained.
