By Matthew Polyak

After taking home the Scudetto (Italian League Title) for the first time in 30 years, Italian soccer giant SSC Napoli started off their new campaign shakily, sitting in 5th after 6 games with them winning 3, drawing 2, and losing 1. While the team might not be in particularly great form right now, they have some very good players. One of them being Nigerian forward Victor Osimhen.

Osimhen signed for Napoli in 2020 for a stunning 70 million euros. However, it wasn’t until last season, 2022-23, where he completely showed the world who he was. In a stunning campaign, the striker scored 26 goals and became the leagues highest scoring African player, with a total of 47 goals since he had joined in 2020. Most memorably for him, he scored the only goal in a 1-1 draw with Udinese, confirming the club’s first league title since 1989-90.

Osimhen during post-season was chased down by so many clubs, who were desperate to get his signature. However, he committed to staying in Naples. So far, he has scored 4 goals in 6 games and has clearly been Napoli’s best player. But, someone at the club would make a terrible decision after their game against Bologna.

On the 24th of September, Napoli were due to play Bologna. The match had ended 0-0, with Osimhen unfortunately missing a penalty, which in hindsight, would have given Napoli 3 points and a win. But afterwords, 2 videos would go up on the official SSC Napoli TikTok account.

The first video apparently mocked the Nigerians haircut, comparing his head and hair to “a coconut.” The music in the background could be heard playing “I am not a boy… I am not a girl… I’m a coconut” while displaying pictures of his head with arrows, x’s, and gender symbols. The second video mocked Osimhen for arguing for a penalty. “Gimme penalty, please… PENALTY!” was heard in the background with a high pitch voice and also displayed with captions on the bottom half of the screen. The background behind the captions displayed Osimhen arguing with the referee before the penalty call was made, and then his miss from the spot.

While some have argued that this is racism, it is clear that this is disrespect on every level and it is completely unacceptable. His agent immediately defended him, saying on the platform X, that “What happened today on Napoli’s official profile on the TikTok platform is not acceptable… A video mocking Victor was first made public and then belatedly, deleted. A serious fact that causes very serious damage to the player and adds to the treatment that Victor is suffering in the last period between media trials and fake news… We reserve the right to take legal action and any useful initiative to protect Victor.”

The video, obviously, was deleted after a period of time. But, this is the internet. There is no going back. Because of this, Napoli’s hand was forced into releasing a statement. Saying the following:

“To avoid any potential exploitation of the matter, SSC Napoli would like to explicitly state that the club never intended to offend or make fun of Victor Osimhen, who is an asset to the club… Over the course of the summer Napoli rejected all offers to sign the striker — firm proof of the club’s appreciation of him… On social media, and TikTok particularly, expressive language is used in a light-hearted and playful manner. In this case involving Victor there was no intention of mockery or derision… If Victor was in any way offended, this was not at all in the club’s intentions.”

There have been reports of a potential lawsuit being drafted and more reports of the player wanting to obtain a move away from Naples. The player has notably removed all social media posts of him in Napoli club uniform.

I find this quite disgusting from the club, not only because I liked them, but more so because he is the reason they won the league last season. He is such a valuable person to the team, and to let this happen is so unprofessional and amateur. The message from the Napoli camp was incredibly weak and to be honest, doesn’t make sense. How could their intentions have been not to offend, if the only thing the post was designed to do, was to offend! Clearly, Osimhen should leave Napoli. There is no respect for him from the club. He should also file the lawsuit, because that type of disrespect is unacceptable, and quite frankly could be a breach of contract from the club. However this ends, Napoli here, have quite literally shot themselves in the foot. And they deserve any and all punishment that comes there way.

Sources

• espn.com
• reuters.com
• skysports.com
• pulsesports.ng
• twitter.com
• tiktok.com
• theathletic.com
• apnews.com
• goal.com
• flashscore.com
• eurosport.com
• transfrmarkt.us