Galatasaray Have Now Said No To Al-Hilal Twice Over Osimhen
Istanbul · Friday 21 August 2026
Al-Hilal came back with EUR150 million and a net salary package worth around EUR50 million a year for Victor Osimhen. Galatasaray said no, again, and said it fast enough that the refusal was public before the offer had properly circulated.
This was the second bid. The first, at EUR130 million, had already been turned down, with Galatasaray telling the Saudi club that their striker was not available this summer at any price. Raising the number by EUR20 million and adding a salary most European clubs could not contemplate did not change the answer.
Set against the market, the size of what has been refused is easy to underestimate. EUR150 million would have made Osimhen the most expensive African footballer in the history of the game by a wide margin, and it would have done so for a 27-year-old playing in the Turkish Super Lig rather than one of Europe's big five leagues.
The numbers behind the refusal
Since arriving in Istanbul, Osimhen has scored 59 goals in 74 appearances. That is a rate a shade under 0.8 goals a game, sustained across two seasons, in a league that is more physical and less forgiving than its reputation abroad suggests.
Osimhen's record for Galatasaray since joining, as reported at the time of the Al-Hilal approach.
Why a club takes the money, and why this one did not
The normal logic of a Saudi bid is close to irresistible for a club outside the Premier League. The fee arrives in full, the wage bill drops, and the selling club can replace one player with three. Clubs across Europe have taken that trade in the last three seasons and most have been better off financially for it.
Galatasaray's board, under president Dursun Ozbek, has looked at the same trade and declined it twice. The public reasoning is that Osimhen is central to the club's European and domestic ambitions. That is the sort of line clubs say when they are negotiating. In this case there is a structure underneath it.
Galatasaray are not trying to balance a book. They are trying to become a club that reaches the latter stages of the Champions League, and the difference between the team that does that and the team that does not is almost entirely the presence of a striker who scores in the games that are decided by one goal. You cannot buy that with EUR150 million, because the players who do it are not for sale either, which is exactly the position Galatasaray now find themselves defending.
Money solves a wage bill. It does not solve a Champions League last sixteen tie in February. Galatasaray have decided which problem they would rather have.
What it means for the player
Osimhen turns 28 during this season. That is the last window in a striker's career where a EUR50 million salary is available without an implicit acceptance that the competitive part is over. Refusing it is not costless to him, and it is worth being honest about that rather than framing the decision as pure loyalty.
The counter-argument is that his stock has never been higher, and that a season of Champions League football at Galatasaray keeps a European return live in a way that two seasons in Riyadh would not. Arsenal have been repeatedly linked. So have others. The Saudi Pro League has not yet produced a case of a player leaving at 27, spending two seasons there, and returning to a top European side at the same level.
Nigeria's stake in this
There is a national team dimension that gets mentioned less than it should. Nigeria did not qualify for the 2026 World Cup, which means the next competitive showcase for this squad is AFCON. A Super Eagles striker playing Champions League football is a different asset to the national side than the same striker playing in a league Nigerian supporters cannot easily watch and European scouts do not attend.
It also matters for what comes after. The pipeline argument for Nigerian players has always rested on visibility. Every Nigerian teenager who gets a trial in Europe is benefiting, in some small way, from the fact that the most expensive African player in the world is someone a European club is desperate to sign. That case gets harder to make when the biggest Nigerian names all play in the Gulf.
What happens now
Al-Hilal have two options. They can go again in January, when Galatasaray's European campaign will either be alive or finished and the calculation changes accordingly. Or they can move on, which Saudi clubs have historically done quickly once a target is publicly established as unavailable.
Galatasaray's position is simpler and more fragile than it looks. They have now declined EUR150 million on the basis of a season that has barely started. If that season ends in a Super Lig title and a deep European run, the refusal looks like conviction. If it ends in a domestic near-miss and a group stage exit, it will be the most expensive decision the club has taken in a decade, and everyone involved knows it.
Reporting: Turkiye Today, OneFootball, Turkish Football, Goal and Soccernet NG.
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