VICTOR OSIMHEN
Victor Osimhen, a football player from Nigeria, received the Italian Footballers’ Association (IFA) Footballer of the Year award after leading Napoli to victory.
IFA made this announcement on its official X page, which included a video of the award presentation. The honour was given in recognition of Osimhen’s roles in both Napoli’s 33 years title drought and his accomplishment as Series A’s top scorer in the previous campaign.
In 32 Serie A games, Osimhen scored 26 goals.
According to Football Italia, the “Footballer of the Year” award is thought to be the most important one of the evening and has previously gone to players like Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Cristiano Ronaldo, Gianluigi Buffon, and Rafael Leao.
This honour coincides with rumours that he may be leaving Italy in the summer of 2019. Rumour has it that the Nigerian player is becoming less and less likely to sign a new deal with Napoli as a result of the team making fun of him in a video that was posted on Tiktok in September. This was in response to the striker’s late penalty miss in a league match against Bologna.
Nigerians responded negatively to the club’s behaviour on social media, particularly on X, the former name for Twitter. The 24-year-old’s representative also stated at the time that Napoli could face legal repercussions for releasing a derogatory film featuring the striker. When Osimhen was replaced in the match against Bologna, he got into a verbal altercation with the team’s then-manager, Rudi Garcia, which sparked the issue.