Gift Orban is unhappy with the music played in Lyon’s dressing room and wants Burna Boy

Raising football star Gift Orban’s integration into the Olympique Lyonnais dressing room was questioned in the wake of his January transfer from Gent, and whilst those reports have been denied, the Nigerian forward has admitted that there is one element of life in the OL dressing room that isn’t completely to his liking.

According to Romain Molina, the €12m signing was causing problems at Lyon with his attitude in training being called into question. The French journalist claimed that the Nigerian forward had shown anger issues during his opening days at the Ligue 1 strugglers. Molina even accused OL of failing to do their due diligence on the player’s background, given that these issues were also present at the player’s previous clubs.

These reports were denied by club captain Alexandre Lacazette, stating that he believed that the new signing was perhaps misunderstood. “He’s quite funny. He says a lot of things ironically. For those that didn’t figure him out at the start, it may have seemed a bit weird, but he has a lot of humour,” he said back in February.

Orban has also now responded to the reports in an interview with L’Équipe, revealing one element of the Lyon dressing room that is not to his taste.

“People don’t know me, but that’s me. I say what I think, I tell the truth. If you do something I don’t like, I won’t do anything behind your back, I will stand in front of you and say it. I’m not a hypocrite, I am direct and I don’t have a problem with anyone here. I try to be nice to everyone, to come to training, and share my joy. If you see me from afar, you’ll tell yourself that I’m a bit weird, but once you get close to me, you’ll realise I’m easy-going and respectful. You just need to know me. I’ve experienced some things in life that make me like this, I am not afraid of anything,” began Orban, who then went on to discuss adapting his personality and an interesting anecdote about the music preferences in the dressing room.

“You can say that I am trying to control it. When you have a hot and determined personality, you need to know how to manage it, so I try to channel my energy; it’s important. You always have to behave well and especially adapt when you arrive somewhere. I’ll give you an example: I like Burna Boy, good Nigerian music. When I arrived in Lyon, there was French music in the dressing room, with things like ‘wesh’ (a French slang word). I don’t like it at all, but for the group, I accept that they play it and I listen to my music at home. The most important thing is the club and my teammates before me,” added the Lyon forward.