Victor Osimhen: From Selling Purewater to NGN4.2 billion per year
The grass to grace story of the Napoli Legend
First of all, how have you been? Its been quite some time. I travelled to Canada early this year and have been there for sometime now. I hope to comeback later this year and see all my friends and family.
Back to the story….
If you are a football fan, you will probably know that Napoli has won the league for the first time in 33 years. The last time they achieved this feat was when one of the greatest players of all time, Diego Maradona of blessed memories, wore the Napoli jersey in 1990.
A significant contribution to Napoli’s prolific 2023 season is their talismanic forward none other than Victor Osimhen.
I will not go into so many details of how Victor struggled with injury this season and was able to score 22 goals in the league and counting without even being their penalty taker.
What I want to focus on today is his background. I read an article by Lolade Adewuyi on his grass to grace story.
Victor's family was poor, and he had to sell pure water and do menial work which include carrying of cement amongst other things to fend for himself and family and earning a few hundreds of Naira.
He grew up around Olusosun Ikeja
He moved to Germany in 2016 and played for Wolfsburg before going on loan to a Belgian club called Cheleroi where he spent 2 years. He then moved to French side, Lille before joining Napoli in 2020
Now Victor earns about 105, 000 euros every week which is a whooping 5,460,000 euros per year and in Naira terms that is about NGN4.2 billion per year (Using black market rate of NGN775/Euro).
Now, I know that this kind of salary is peculiar to footballers, but the question that came to my mind is this.
If Victor stayed back in Nigeria, will he have ever been able to earn NGN4.2 billion, (his one year salary) in his entire lifetime?
The chances are very slim. Though not impossible
This is the reason why I think its not a bad idea to have a second passport.
Yes , we can do business internationally even from Nigeria and accept payment from all over the world with the advent of Stripe, Payoneer, Paypal etc
But there is nothing as good as having the option to living in a new country and experiencing things first hand and even seeing whether your unique skills can be explored further there. Even if this is for a short period
I won’t say everyone should Japa (relocate) because Nigeria has a lot of positives. But still your skill or talent may be valuable in a foreign country. Or you will see better opportunities for collaboration. You will never know unless you try
I hope this content has been helpful.
Now the weekend is here. What are you doing?
Any plans to have fun , work or family time? As for me I have tons of work to do, but I hope to read a book too
You can let me know in the comment section
Have a lovely and stress free weekend
N.B This article should have gone out weeks earlier, I don’t know why I didn’t share it. lol But here it is anyway. I guess its better late than never