The deal was done before lunch
Fourteen million euros in, four seasons gone, not one of them spent in a Lille shirt. Mohamed Bayo is on his way to Samsunspor, and RMC reports the two clubs settled it on Friday morning.
Turkey’s window is still open. France’s is shut. Olivier Letang had clearly been counting on exactly that gap.
The Lille president said as much the moment the French market closed. “4 players are likely to move, like Mohamed Bayo, for a permanent transfer.” That was a signal aimed squarely at the leagues still trading, and it has now produced its first outcome. The Guinea striker leaves with a year left on his contract, sold outright after three straight loans.
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Four years without ever really settling
Lille paid 14 million euros in the summer of 2022 to take him off Clermont. Steep money for a striker built in Ligue 1 and never tested anywhere above it.
The return never arrived. Le Havre, then Royal Antwerp, then Gaziantep. Bayo kept being loaned out and kept coming back to a club that had no room for him.
Look at the numbers and the joke writes itself. His 15 league goals in Turkey last season were his best haul since Clermont. The Super Lig handed him the minutes, the responsibility and the central role that Ligue 1 never did.
Samsunspor back a known quantity
The Black Sea club are not gambling blind here. They are buying a striker who already knows the league, its tempo and its centre backs, so the settling-in period should be short.
Lille shed a salary and tidy up an attack they rebuilt over the summer. Letang mentioned four departures. Three still have to be closed before the last windows shut.
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