Turkey’s Galatasaray Sportif (GSRAY) paid a net €75mn to Italian football club Napoli for Nigerian striker Victor James Osimhen, according to a stock exchange filing from the Istanbul-listed company.

The terms of the player transfer state that when the Istanbul club sells Osimhen, it must pay 10% of any received fee from the sale to Napoli.

Galatasaray, one of the “Big Four” in Turkey’s Super Lig, will pay €21mn a year to 26-year-old Osimhen over a four-year contract.

The transfer terms set Turkish football transfer fee and player salary records.

Another €12mn a year for Sane

In June, Galatasaray agreed to pay €12mn a year to Leroy Aziz Sane, a 29-year-old German winger.

GSRAY is a unit of Galatasaray Sports Club. It operates the club’s football team.

In July, GSRAY repaid all of its debts to a consortium of local banks and ended a loan structuring deal. Subsequently, Galatasaray Sports Club repaid debts of Turkish lira (TRY) 1.5bn ($37mn) to GSRAY.

Race for prestige with Saudis

The sheer size of the Osimhen and Sane deals indicate that Turkey has entered into an “arms race” for football prestige with Saudi Arabia. The latter has been seen as “a football financial powerhouse in recent years”, in the football transfer market, Deutsche Welle wrote on August 11, while posing the question: Is Turkey becoming football's next Saudi Arabia?

In Saudi Arabia, football was one leg of a strategy introduced by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) as he set out to modernise the oil-rich country.

Fenerbahce (FENER), another of the “Big Four”, which comes under the ownership of Fenerbahce Sports Club, is to pay a net €20mn a year to Jhon Duran, 21, a Colombian striker on loan from Saudi club Al-Nassr, and €15mn a year to Anderson Talisca, 31, an attacking midfielder who joined Fenerbahce from Al-Nassr in January, according to DW.

Has Turkey found oil?

GSRAY and FENER along with a third member of the “Big Four”, Besiktas (BJKAS), are splashing out on record-breaking signings despite high debt burdens and their location in a country that has been struggling economically, according to the German state-run news service.

The combined debt of the trio, added to that of the fourth member of the “Big Four”, namely Trabzonspor (TSPOR), a club located in Trabzon on the eastern Black Sea coast, is thought to exceed €1bn. Their revenues have long fallen short of covering their expenditures, DW added.

Moreover, the four clubs earn in Turkish lira while spending in hard currencies.

Ending restructuring deals

The clubs, however, regularly receive financial support from the government. Turkey’s capital markets board permits them to hike their paid-in capital via rights issues.

Public banks regularly restructure their debts. But, lately, they have been ending their debt restructuring deals with the banking consortiums while at the same time making global headlines by paying out sensational transfer fees.