New fuss at SSC Napoli: Because the Serie A champions make fun of their goal scorer Victor Osimhen in a video, a legal dispute could even follow.
The start of the season has been bumpy anyway, so there is new excitement off the pitch at SSC Napoli – apparently completely self-inflicted. The reason is a video that the current Italian champions published on their Tiktok channel and revolves around Victor Osimhen.
In the post, which has since been deleted, Napoli makes fun of the goalkeeper’s missed penalty kick in the recent 0-0 draw with FC Bologna. Osimhen can be seen – accompanied by a high-pitched voice (“Give me a penalty, please!”) – excitedly calling for a handball penalty, only to see it miss the goal by a clear margin.
Osimhen advisor: “A serious matter “
Now the club is facing trouble. “What happened today on Napoli’s official profile on the platform Tiktok is not acceptable,” Osimhen’s adviser Roberto Calenda wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday evening, making the clip all the more public. “A video making fun of Victor was first published and then, but belatedly, deleted. A serious matter that causes serious damage to the player and adds to the treatment the boy has received recently between media lawsuits and fakenews. We reserve the right to take legal action and any meaningful initiative to protect Victor.” As a first reaction, Osimhen deleted all Napoli-related images from his Instagram channel.
The site comes at an inopportune time for both the club and the player. Recently, there had already been trouble between coach Rudi Garcia and the ex-Wolfsburg player because the former had substituted the latter in Bologna in the closing stages, causing a war of words on the sidelines. The dispute is said to have been settled in the meantime – now there is already another one elsewhere. All this is unlikely to help the negotiations that have been going on for months about a contract extension beyond 2025.
Napoli, champions for the first time since 1990, are struggling to get going after the end of the era of successful coach Luciano Spalletti and are only seventh in the table after five matchdays, seven points behind leaders Inter Milan. Spalletti’s successor Garcia is already under observation.