Victor Osimhen Voluntarily Stopped Taking Penalties For Napoli – Reports

Reports in Italy have confirmed that Nigerian striker Victor Osimhen, voluntarily told the club he won’t be taking penalty duties again due to the club’s TikTok videos mocking the player for missing a penalty in September.

In one of the controversial videos, Victor Osimhen was made fun of for asking for a penalty in a Serie A game against Bologna and ended up missing it.

The scandal led to the resignation of the club’s social media executive and the club had to issue a statement to insist that they didn’t mean to mock him.

The 24-year-old Nigeria international has also issued a statement to say he is committed to the club and that no one would come between him and his supporters.

Despite insisting on being committed to the club, he has decided to stay away from his responsibility of taking penalties. Interestingly, since the incident, Napoli have had three penalties.

In place of Osimhen, 29-year-old Polish midfielder Piotr Zielinski has taken on the responsibility of taking the spot-kicks. The Poland international has scored against Udinese and Real Madrid from the spot-kick while Matteo Politano took the equalizing penalty kick against Lecce in a mid-week league game.

According to La Repubblica and TMW, Osimhen decided to forego his penalty duty after feeling unduly humiliated by the club’s social media team.

Recall that Osimhen scored two of his three Serie A penalty kicks in the 2022–23 season—which resulted in the team winning the Scudetto—and scored one of his two attempts in the early 2023–2024 campaign.