When Victor Osimhen was unveiled as a Galatasaray player in the summer of 2025, he revealed that it was his daughter’s affinity with the club – the Nigerian had spent time on loan in Turkey during the previous season – that convinced him to sign on the dotted line.
It had nothing, repeat, NOTHING to do with the €15 million (£13 million) salary that he was offered to join the club on a permanent basis.
The deal caused a ripple through world football. Osimhem, at 26, has plenty to offer and could have easily brokered a move to any of Europe’s ‘big five’ leagues, or even a big money switch to Saudi Arabia.
In 2020, he joined Napoli from Lille for £70 million, going on to score 65 goals in 108 appearances in Serie A and the Champions League.
Three years later, Osimhem became the first Nigerian ever to finish inside the top ten ranking of the Ballon d’Or Award, before winning the African Player of the Year Award.
Fast forward to 2025 and, well, why Galatasaray for one of the hottest properties in world football?
In Good Company
It wasn’t just Osimhem leaving European football’s biggest leagues behind.
Ilkay Gundogan returned to the birthplace of his parents, swapping Manchester City to share the Gala dressing room with Osimhem, while another former Cityzen – Leroy Sane – decided to leave Bayern Munich and join his former teammate under Pep Guardiola.
Galatasaray were also able to persuade one of the brightest defensive talents in Europe to join them. Wilfried Singo played 33 times for Monaco in 2024/25, representing the club in both Ligue 1 and the Champions League.
There are, shall we say, certain tax perks to playing for Monaco, but even that wasn’t enough for the 24-year-old to stay – the lure of Galatasaray proving too strong.
Another Manchester City alumni, Ederson, headed to Fenerbahce, as did PSG duo Marco Asensio – who impressed at Aston Villa the prior season on loan – and Milan Skriniar.
Gundogan, Ederson, Sane and co are all guys in their late twenties or early thirties, so the root cause behind their ambition to join the newly minted Turkish Super Lig speaks for itself.
But Osimhem… well that’s more of a head scratcher.
Or maybe not. According to Capology, the Nigerian’s annual salary increased by €6 million a year when he decided to ditch Napoli for Galatasaray.
Mystery solved.
Either way, the previously uncharted levels of spending in Turkey were notable in that they promoted the country to third place in the global spending standings in the summer of 2025, behind only the English Premier League and the Saudi Pro League.
So how has the Turkish Super Lig been able to usurp La Liga, Serie A, the Bundesliga and co to become one of the most attractive – and lucrative – places for players to ply their trade in Europe?
The Revolution in Turkish Football
The vast majority of footballers in the Premier League earn more than £125,140 per year, which puts them in the top bracket when it comes to income tax payments.
That means that 45% of their salary is lost to tax; all that training, all that physical sacrifice and suffering, all that pressure, all that abuse from opposition fans – and sometimes your own club’s supporters… and you’re going to give effectively half of your earnings away to the taxman.
There’s a similar situation in other countries too, so the Turkish President – Recep Tayyip Erdogan – came up with a novel idea in a bid to make football in Turkey more attractive to overseas players: instigate a flat 20% income tax rate.
That means that Turkish workers on big salaries actually pay more in tax than professional footballers, but Erdogan isn’t bothered: he is a huge fan of the sport, even acting as the best man to Mesut Ozil at his wedding, and wants Turkey to become a footballing super power.
Hot Property
It’s also interesting to note that many of Turkey’s big clubs are owned by their members; rather than businesspeople or consortiums only interested in making money.
Unsurprisingly then, success on the pitch is treasured more highly than profitability, which means that spending on new players is not something that most Turkish clubs baulk at.
But the powerhouses of Turkish football do have funds to play with anyway, thanks to a series of property deals and land sales that have raked in millions.
Galatasaray are located on the European side of Istanbul, which is becoming increasingly affluent thanks to its attractiveness to overseas investors and rich people seeking a bolthole on the continent.
The football club owns pockets of land across the area, with reports suggesting that their holdings are worth in the region of £300 million. They have sold off some parcels of land already, helping them to fund an empire that has seen Galatasaray win three consecutive Turkish Super Lig titles – in 2024/25, they lost only one game and prevailed by eleven clear points.
One of Turkey’s other ‘big three’ clubs, Fenerbahce, has taken a similar path. They share Istanbul with Galatasaray and a host of other clubs, owing land that they have since sold for a meaty cash injection – raising more than £100 million in the process.
That has helped the club clear their debts and exit a credit agreement with prominent Turkish banks… while freeing up the funds that have allowed Fenerbahce to spend £58 million on new players during the 2024/25 season and a further £75 million in the summer of 2025.
As if all that revenue generation wasn’t enough, the Istanbul clubs also ask fans to cough up some of the most exorbitant ticket prices in the Champions League. But that doesn’t put them off, as season tickets at Galatasaray sold out in a single day – raising more than £30 million in capital within 24 hours.
There is the danger of a ‘haves vs have nots’ divide in Turkish football, but Gala, Fenerbahce and Besiktas won’t care one bit. In fact, in the summer of 2025, that trio – plus Trabzonspor – accounted for 96% of Turkish football’s entire transfer spending.
Around 30% of that outlay went on Osimhem alone, with Galatasaray forking out £75 million to make the Nigerian’s loan move from Napoli a permanent deal – smashing the previous Turkish transfer record by a cool £49 million.
Osimhem scored the winner as Galatasaray beat Liverpool in the Champions League in September 2025. That was an unforgettable night for the club, so maybe he – and the other big names that have moved to Turkey this season – will prove to be money well spent after all.
