Tariq Lamptey is set to be released by Fiorentina after making only two appearances for the Serie A side, with the Italian club and the former Chelsea starlet reportedly close to a mutual termination of his contract.
The 25-year-old right-back joined Fiorentina last summer in a deal worth approximately €6 million (£5.1 million) and signed a three-year contract that was due to run until June 2028. However, an injury-ravaged debut campaign in Italy has left him on the fringes, and according to La Gazzetta dello Sport, the two parties are now negotiating an early departure that would see Lamptey give up the remaining two years of his deal.
A nightmare move to Florence
Lamptey’s time at Fiorentina has been defined by two fleeting, and painful, cameos. He made his debut off the bench against Napoli in a home defeat, but the appearance lasted just four minutes. Then, in his first start against Como — a side managed by Cesc Fabregas — he ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) after only 21 minutes. That injury, suffered in late September 2025, has sidelined him for the rest of the campaign, forcing him to miss both legs of Fiorentina’s UEFA Conference League quarter-final elimination by Crystal Palace in April 2026.
The club is now expected to let Lamptey leave as a free agent, a decision that will allow him to negotiate with other clubs without a transfer fee standing in the way.
Dazzling debut at Chelsea
Lamptey’s career began with extraordinary promise at Chelsea’s Cobham academy. He made his senior debut in December 2019 against Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium, coming off the bench for a 30-minute cameo as the Blues won 2-1. With Frank Lampard in the dugout and first-choice wing-backs Marcos Alonso and Reece James both injured, Lamptey seized his opportunity with a display that left the Chelsea manager effusive.
“He has pace, a low centre of gravity and can go by people,” Lampard said afterwards. “Of course he wants to work on his end product and all the last bits.” Lampard added that he had seen Lamptey while doing his coaching badges and knew the teenager possessed “a different dimension as a right-sided wing-back”. He urged the club to secure the youngster on a new deal, saying, “Hopefully he feels a bit of love that we’ve parachuted him in.”
South coast switch and mixed fortunes
Despite that early show of faith, Lamptey opted to leave Chelsea just 32 days after his debut, snubbing a contract offer to join Brighton & Hove Albion on deadline day in January 2020. He signed a three-and-a-half-year deal on the south coast and went on to make 122 appearances for the Seagulls, scoring five goals. Yet his time at the Amex Stadium was repeatedly interrupted by injury, preventing him from cementing the starting role many had predicted for him. Born in Hillingdon, London, Lamptey represents Ghana at international level — having played for England at youth age groups — and made his debut for the Black Stars in 2022.
An extensive injury history
The persistent fitness problems that have defined Lamptey’s career are not a recent phenomenon. Over the past five years, he has suffered at least 13 separate injuries that have kept him out of action for nearly 800 days in total. The first serious blow came in December 2020, when a torn hamstring sidelined him for 197 days. Another significant setback arrived during the 2022/23 season, when a knee injury cost him 118 days on the sidelines. The ACL rupture at Fiorentina is merely the latest chapter in a long, painful list.
Those repeated absences have turned a player once tipped as the next big product of Chelsea’s academy into a cautionary tale of what might have been. His bright start against Arsenal, the low centre of gravity Lampard admired, and the searing pace that made him such a threat have all been robbed of consistency by his body’s inability to stay fit.
With his Fiorentina contract now likely to be torn up, Lamptey will become a free agent once more. The club is reportedly releasing him specifically to facilitate an agreement with another side, but finding a new home will require a club willing to bet on a talented but fragile defender finally shaking off the injury curse that has followed him since those early days at Brighton.
