Onuachu begged me to accept Southampton’s offer — De Conde

Super Eagles striker Paul Onuachu had to intervene for KRC Genk to accept Southampton’s offer for his services.

It was a dream for Onuachu, 28, to play in one of Europe’s top leagues after several successful seasons with Genk.

The Limburgers had rejected offers for the player in the past windows, and with the player, realizing Southampton’s interest is his last chance of achieving his dream move, he had to take matters into his own hands and pleaded with Genk’s Director Dimitri De Condé to let him go.

“At 13 o’clock I had a conversation with a very emotional Paul. He had trained very well, you really can’t blame that boy. But he felt his dream slip away again. ‘Please, let me go. This could be my very last chance, he begged me, says De Conde.

“I had to make it clear to him that there were two conditions under which the deal could succeed. One: the numbers had to be correct. And two: we had to be able to bring in a replacement,” De Condé explains in HBvL.

Southampton after a ridiculous first offer that was laughed off finally came up with an £18m offer that was accepted.

“I had already had a conversation about it with trainer Wouter Vrancken in the morning. ‘At a certain point you can no longer say ‘no’ on a human level’, Wouter agreed. Especially because certain promises were made to Paul,” He concluded.