The agent of Napoli forward Victor Osimhen has threatened the striker’s club with legal action after videos described as ‘not acceptable’ were posted by the club’s official social media.
Posted onto social media site TikTok, one of the videos appears to mock the Nigeria striker for appealing for a penalty and then missing the penalty in their goalless draw with Bologna at the weekend. Another video has been alleged to be racially motivated, comparing Osimhen to a coconut.
In response, Osimhen’s agent, Roberto Calenda, took to X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, to say ‘what happened on Napoli’s official profile on the TikTok platform is not acceptable’. Both posts have now been deleted. Calenda went on to say his player ‘reserves the right to take legal action’ against the club.
Osimhen has also subsequently removed almost all pictures of him in a Napoli shirt from another social media account. His Instagram, as of Wednesday morning, was almost exclusively of him playing for Nigeria.
The 24-year-old striker was Capocannoniere in Serie A last season, scoring 26 goals as Napoli won their third ever Serie A title and first Scudetto outside of the influence of former Argentina captain Diego Maradona.
Osimhen began his professional career with Wolfsburg in 2017 before a loan spell at Charleroi in Belgium in 2018 earned him a move to Lille after scoring 12 goals in 25 games in the Jupiler Pro League. After one season in Ligue 1, scoring 13 in 27, he moved to Napoli for a club record fee believed to be in the region of 70 million euros.
Whilst with I Partenopei, Osimhen has scored an extremely impressive 62 goals in 107 appearances and forged himself as a club legend after last season’s league winning antics. He also has 20 goals in 26 caps for Nigeria.
After a contract dispute with Napoli owner and president Aurelio Di Laurentiis over the summer, Osimhen’s future is now even more uncertain after just a month of the 2023/24 campaign. Napoli have started poorly and they are winless in their last three Serie A matches after losing manager Luciano Spalletti and defender Kim Min-jae over the summer.
