Retired football player Austin Jay Jay Okocha has claimed that he would have been worth €150 million in the transfer market if he was playing in this generation.
OsunDaily News recalls that Okocha moved from Eintracht Frankfurt to Fenerbahçe in 1996 for a transfer fee reportedly worth over £1 million after the German side was relegated from the Bundesliga.
The Nigerian iconic midfielder performed admirably for the Turkish team for two years before he left as a club legend.
French Ligue 1 giants, Paris Saint Germain bought him from the Turkish side for a record-breaking £14 million after his mind-blowing performance at the 1998 FIFA World Cup.
Okocha claimed in an interview with Hurriyet that his transfer fee would have been around €150 million based on the current transfer market which saw Chelsea pay a whopping £106 million for Argentine midfielder Enzo Fernandez.
The 49-year-old believed that with his level of skillfulness and how he used to provide assists for attackers, he would have been worth much more than that in this generation.
“Maybe 1 billion should have been paid for me,” he said.
“They paid £106m for their defensive midfielder Chelsea. To a player from Portugal. It would have cost around €150m. My assists, dribbles… World football started to pay a lot of money. Such would be the numbers of players of this quality.”
On his departure from Fenerbahçe to PSG, Jay Jay Okocha added, “It was a really difficult decision. I left very sadly. I was very happy in Fenerbahçe. Moreover, I married my wife in Turkey. My children were about to be born.
“When I went to the World Cup, I had no such thing in mind. After the matches in the World Cup, an offer came from PSG. Aziz Yildirim was the president. He didn’t want to send me. He didn’t even interview the PSG Club. This process has been very difficult. Despite my sadness, when such an offer came, I wanted to make money for Fenerbahçe.”
