Turkish club Rizespor unveiled Godfrey Oboabona on Thursday, hours after Bastia, the French club rushed a late but better bid for the Nigeria star.
The 23-year-old player has completed a four-year deal with Rizespor after he successfully passed the routine medical, but MTNFootball.com can specially reveal he had a chance to move to the more prestigious French league instead.
About a month ago, Bastia had come into the fray to sign Oboabona, who was a top revelation for Nigeria at the last Africa Cup of Nations in South Africa.
A top source who was privy to the deal said the deal would have seen the Sunshine defender start his European adventure in Lique 1: “Last month I got a call from an associate of mine in France that Bastia wanted to reinforce their central defence and had Oboabona in mind.
“It was a good proposal from them but after I discussed with Mike Idoko of Sunshine, Bastia seemed uncertain. At times, it is like that with French clubs when they are interested in African players that are coming to Europe for the first time. One minute they are chasing after the player, the next they are not.
“About two weeks later they called again and this time around proposed they would be able to pay between 400,000 to 500,000 Euros as transfer fee and also give Sunshine 30% of an onward transfer fee for the player.
“They also offered to start the player on an annual salary of 350,000 euros, increasing it by 50,000 euros every year on a four-year contract.”
The source added: “I believe it was a good package and I believe both the player and Sunshine were at home with it. But again, nothing was heard from the Bastia people until yesterday. (Wednesday) when I guess they heard the boy was about to sign in Turkey.
“May be they were looking at bringing another player in the same position and probably had Oboabona only as a second option.”
The source told MTNFootball.com that Bastia would have been a much better destination for Oboabona.
“I believe Bastia would have been a better option for Oboabona than Rizespor. For one, the French league is of a far higher standard than the league in Turkey and provides better exposure to the bigger clubs in England, Spain, Germany and England,” he argued.
“Bastia have a good history with African players and the present trainer Frederic Hantz, likes African players. That’s where Micheal Essien and Alex Song made their names before moving on to England and I believe if Oboabona had gone there, he would have moved on to the Premier League after two seasons.
“It is the board of Bastia and not the coach that delayed and I am sure in the near future they will realise what chance they lost.”
