Most profiles of Bright Osayi-Samuel have said the same thing: the Super Eagles right back was born in Okija. Then, in a BellaNaija interview published on February 16, 2026, she was asked where she was from. “I was very surprised when everyone said I was from Okija. It is not true; I am half Ondo and half Edo.”
| Brilliant Osayi-Samuel | At a glance |
|---|---|
| was born | December 31, 1997, Nigeria |
| Roots | Half Ondo, half Edo, in his own words |
| Club | Birmingham City, Championship |
| Position | Right wing back, formerly wing back |
| Nigeria | More than 35 covers; Debut against Portugal, 17 November 2022 |
| Contract | The three-year contract was signed on July 4, 2025 |
| Salary | Not disclosed; just guesses |
From Charlton Park to Bloomfield Road
The family left Nigeria when he was a child. They spent a spell in Spain before settling in London. “I speak Spanish too,” BellaNaija said. Football began on the turf of South East London. “My soccer journey started when my mom took me to a local park with an amateur league team,” he said. The team was Valley Park Rangers in Charlton. He was nine years old.
Then came Blackpool.
“I was 15 years old and had to move away from my family and friends to start my dream of becoming a professional footballer,” he recalled. The Seasiders handed him his senior debut in 2015 and the Blackpool Gazette reckon he made 79 senior appearances for the club before moving to Queens Park Rangers in September 2017.
He flourished on Loftus Road. QPR announced him as the best young player of the year for the 2019/20 season.
Club Brugge came calling in the summer of 2020. QPR accepted a second bid, believed to be around £4.7m. Sky Sports reports that the player rejected this move. Fenerbahce signed a pre-contract with him in January 2021 and brought him to Istanbul at the end of that month.
Istanbul, new position and call from Peseiro
Turkey changed the player.
“They changed me from a full-back to a full-back,” he said. He made 178 appearances in four-and-a-half years and Turkish football also showed him its tough side, especially the attack on Trabzonspor’s pitch in March 2024, which we covered at the time.
The Nigeria issue has followed him since his QPR days when, as we reported, he said the family discussed it without any pressure. It was solved by Jose Peseiro.
No one had to convince him. “I am a Nigerian and I am proud to be a Nigerian,” he told NFF TV, reports ThisDay. He started on 17 November 2022 in a 4–0 friendly win over Portugal in Lisbon.
Then he went further. “For me, my country influenced me a lot,” he told OmaSportsTV. His parents took him to Nigerian weddings and raised him on Nigerian food. England, he argued, could not match it. “Unity, vibes.”
He was part of the squad that finished second in AFCON 2023 in Ivory Coast. In Morocco, he played almost every game of the run for bronze and went to the penalty shootout against the hosts in the semi-finals. “For me penalties are 50/50 and we were unlucky that day,” he said.
Osayi-Samuel salary: what was reported
No club has published his salary.
In Turkey, the numbers came from the press. They did not match. A Spor set his salary at €600,000 per year in May 2024, per Fotomach, with a one-million-euro renewal offered. Two months later, “90min Turkey” reported with reference to “Sabah” that he earned 1.8 million euros a year and wanted 2.5 million.
This update never happened.
His contract expired and he joined newly promoted Birmingham City on 4 July 2025 on a three-year deal. “I was homesick and felt like I had goals back home in England,” he said.
Birmingham did not disclose his salary.
Wage-tracking website SalarySport value him at £35,000-a-week, or around £1.82m-a-year, with the contract running until June 2028. This is a model, not a payslip.
Net worth and family
There are no hard, sourced estimates of his net worth, and we’re not going to invent one.
He shares little in the family. His mother, Mrs. Oredola Samuel, spoke at the office of the chairman of the Edo State Sports Commission ahead of the finals of the July 2025 under-13 tournament in Benin City. Daily Trust recounted the story of the night she dropped the ball after returning home late and her response: “Mom, you just threw away my future.”
His father, popularly known as Mr. Osayi, spoke to Premium Times in Abidjan during AFCON 2023. Nothing is revealed about the partner or children.
The tournament is important for him. “I want to keep going every year, make it bigger and take some scouts with me,” he said.
Our vision
At 28, Osayi-Samuel has been on a busy spell. He made 27 Championship appearances in his first season at St Andrew’s, started 2026/27 among the league’s leading tacklers and was named in Eric Chell’s final squad despite Ola Aina competing for the same shirt.
The honest answer on the money is that his salary probably sits somewhere between the Turkey reports and Birmingham estimates, and no one outside the club knows the exact figure, which puts him in a different category than the better-documented Eagles like Ola Aina or Moses Simon.
About Okija, his parents and Nigeria, although his own word is the best source there.
This article was last revised and updated 17 seconds ago