English Premier League club, Chelsea, is ready to break the bank to acquire the service of Nigerian and Napoli forward, Victor Osimhen, by triggering his €130m (£111m) release clause in the summer transfer window.
According to transfer guru, Rudy Galetti, the West Londoners are willing to meet the striker’s whopping asking price which was inserted into a new contract he signed at Napoli last December.
The 25-year-old scored 26 Serie A goals last season to ensure Napoli won her first Scudetto title in over three decades, has been the most wanted striker with several top European clubsides like Arsenal, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Bayern Munich and PSG all linked to him in the last transfer window.
But somehow, Napoli’s shrewd President Aurelio De Laurentiis was able to convince Osimhen to sign a new deal with the mammoth release clause inserted into it.
As the top clubs circled over the 2003 African Footballer of the Year, De Laurentiis had vowed that his star striker was not for sale and even if he was to leave the Italian club, it was not going to be on the cheap.
“This was already known since this summer, our negotiations over the new contract were friendly, otherwise it would not have been so long,” the hard-nosed negotiator had said when the new contract was signed.
But while many clubs have been put off by Osimhen’s release clause, Chelsea owner, Todd Boely and coach Mauricio Pochettino seem to be ready to go the full length to get the Nigerian star to replace the Blues misfiring strikers with the team currently sitting in 10th position in the EPL table.