AFRICAN footballers, like other African/Black athletes in other sports, have always been victims of racial discrimination. It is disheartening that rather than abating, discriminatory treatment of Black footballers in European clubs has been heightening. This persistent issue manifests through abuse from fans, structural inequalities in hiring, and biased media coverage. Despite various anti-racism initiatives, high-profile incidents continue to recur across major European leagues. Recently, Victor Osimhen, arguably the foremost striker in the Nigerian senior national team, the Super Eagles, lamented his travails at Napoli Football Club in Italy. And he believes his suffering has something to do with the colour of his skin rather than any failings on his part. The Super Eagles striker revealed that he felt mistreated by Napoli as the club frustrated his move to another top club in Italy after making him feel unwanted. Before eventually sealing a move to a less fancied Turkish side, Galatasaray, he claimed to have been treated “like a dog”. For instance, despite the interest from Juventus, another top side in Italy, Napoli’s management would not allow discussions to be held, let alone seal a deal.
For someone who had played a pivotal role in Napoli’s 2022/23 Serie A title triumph under Luciano Spalletti, finishing as the league’s top scorer, Osimhen understandably found the treatment meted out to him by the club really disappointing. And in spite of the gentleman’s agreement he had with the club when he reluctantly renewed his contract in 2023, namely that he could leave the next summer, the club never really wanted him to go—and if he must leave, he had to head to a destination of the club’s choosing! According to Osimhen: “They tried to send me anywhere to play, but they treated me like a dog. Go here, go there, do this, do that. I worked so hard to build my career, and I couldn’t accept that kind of treatment. I’m not a puppet.”
The striker’s harsh treatment by the club was not limited to literally taking charge of his career progression and erecting obstacles on the path of his progress. For instance, in September 2023, Napoli posted a TikTok video mocking Osimhen after he missed a penalty against Bologna, an incident that Osimhen says marked a turning point. And we could not agree more with him. The very best of football players do miss penalties, so it was not an unusual incident. While negative reactions from fans could be understood when players miss penalties, it is unconscionable of a club’s management to dwell on such an error to the point of making a video out of it. Osimhen was further scandalised by the purported public apology over the incident which he claimed never happened.
Apparently, Napoli attempted to coerce Osimhen to stay back in the club after a litany of ill-treatments. The Napoli authorities wanted him to work in a hostile environment. Even after Antonie Contey took over as Head Coach of Napoli, he, too, wanted Osimhen to stay in the club, even though he acknowledged the challenges Osimhen had had to contend with. However, the striker told the coach pointedly that he had made his decision to leave. It is not a coincidence that another Super Eagles player who, like Osimhen, is a former African Footballer of the Year, Ademola Lookman, faced the same situation at another Serie A club, Atalanta. Lookman had to protest in different ways and forms before he was allowed to move out of the club and join La Liga side, Atletico Madrid, recently.
As if racial discrimination from football fans and biased media coverage are not bad enough, club owners and managements constantly add another thick layer of racial prejudice against players of colour, regardless of their talent. It is really unfortunate. These power brokers have the tendency to be oppressive given the kind of contracts they give black players. The lesson for black players is to look before they leap and ensure they do not sign contracts with any vestige of slavish conditions. On the part of FIFA, UEFA and others, they should fight racism with renewed vigour. Truth be told, the current efforts of these organisations to rein in racial discrimination, insults and slurs do not seem to be yielding the desired results. It may be helpful if they can intensify their advocacy and/or review the sanctions grid to include more punitive elements to deter perpetrators of racism. Just a few days ago, Real Madrid star, Vinicius Junior, received racial insults from a Benfica player. Racial insults and slurs are a pervasive phenomenon doing great harm to the sport.
It is worth mentioning that racial discrimination in sports is part of a broader, age-long supremacy feeling of the whites towards Black people. And for historical context, it will be recalled that as far back as the 1936 Berlin Olympics where Jesse Owens, a Black American track star, won four Olympic gold medals, he suffered open racial discrimination for shattering Adolf Hitler’s “Aryan supremacy” myth. And despite his international success, Owens returned home to meet a segregated United States, facing deep-rooted racism, financial hardship, and exclusion. Racial discrimination is a deeply entrenched monster that must be stamped out of sports by all means if sports, especially football, is to yield optimal benefits for humanity.
Football is a huge business with several loops on its value chain. It is time the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) shed its toga of a public sector practitioner and embraced the commercial angle to football so that the country and everyone involved can derive optimal benefits from the sport. Currently, NFF is not helping matters; it operates like the Nigerian civil service and it is laid back. It is the NFF’s duty to guide players, especially young ones just going abroad, so that they do not get enslaved under the guise of contracts. It is on record that countries like Brazil and Argentina take the export of their players as a form of foreign exchange: they do not joke with the issue. There is no reason Nigeria cannot follow suit as it even probably needs the potential foreign inflows from players’ export more than these two countries. While we will keep urging the relevant authorities, FIFA, UEFA and so on to work assiduously towards stymieing racial insults and slurs from misguided football fans against African/Black players, the local federations of the players, retired footballers and players’ agents are enjoined to properly guide young players to ensure that they do not sign contracts whose terms and conditions give Club owners and managements the leeway to mistreat them.