Victor Boniface has often cursed his luck.
When he missed the Super Eagles final cut to the 2023 AFCON on account of a major abductor injury in training camp, he recalled how he also missed out on the sub-regional qualifiers with the Flying Eagles also due to injury.
This is also the same player who has survived to back-to-back ACL injuries that cost him to miss playing football for over 400 days.
His mother died when he was still a child and he had to grow up with his grandmother.
The Bayer Leverkusen striker will also have to now curse his luck after he missed out on a life-changing transfer to Al Nassr of Saudi Arabia.
The former club of Ahmed Musa offered to pay him a staggering 15 Million Euros a year, which is seven times what he earned at the German champions and would have made him the highest paid Nigerian football star in history.
Leverkusen would have made a handsome profit from this sale as they had agreed a transfer fee of 60 Million Euros with the Saudis after they paid Belgian club Union St.Gilloise about 20 Million Euros for the player in the summer of 2023.
The Belgian club also stood to earn an additional Five Million Euros had ‘Boni’ made the move to Saudi Arabia.
Even at 24, Victor Boniface accepted the chance that would have seen him play alongside his GOAT Cristiano Ronaldo and one-time CAF Player of the Year Sadio Mane.
There are now even speculations that the proposed move to Saudi Arabia may have been one of the reasons he broke up with his long-time Norwegian girlfriend.
Norway has been very critical about the human rights record of the oil-rich kingdom and even made that very much known when FIFA awarded Saudi Arabia the hosting rights for the 2034 World Cup.
Opinions were sharply divided on whether the striker should move to Saudi Arabia as he has yet to leave his football legacy in Europe.
This was the same said of his close friend and fellow Super Eagles star Victor Osimhen, when another Saudi Arabian club, Al Ahli, came calling last summer.
The Saudis offered generational wealth and Osimhen himself confessed when they first came calling that he was tempted to choose “the bag” over football.
For aficionados of the Beautiful Game, you play football for the glory and trophies, but for the realist, professional football is the cash.
Pro football has not only changed the lives of the players, but also their families and communities as could be illustrated with the story of Sadio Mane, whose little hometown of Bambali can now boast of top-class infrastructure, from school to stadium, thanks to the generosity of the former Liverpool star.
There are many mouths to feed in Brazil and that is why their players have chased the cash in Saudi Arabia and all over the world.
Why should Nigerian players do otherwise when they are the bread winners of many dirt-poor families?
