It is no longer news that former Chelsea and Nigeria midfielder John Mikel Obi has parted ways with Turkish super club, Trabzonspor.
During the week, Trabzonspor chairman Ahmet Agaoglu stated that the Turkish football league should continue despite widespread calls from the international community for the league to be suspended to avoid spreading coronavirus.
According to Agaoglu, whose club is top of the table in Turkey the league shouldn’t be stopped because it could increase the rate of divorces across Turkey but his former player Mikel Obi has now responded to Agaoglu’s claims.
Mikel, this week terminated his contract with Trabzonspor after criticizing the club on social media for continuing matches when other European leagues had stopped football matches. The Club chairman asked Mikel to delete his social media post to which Mikel refused, leading to both parties agreeing to mutually part ways.
Asked to respond to Agaoglu’s comments, Mikel was quoted as saying by the Guardian UK : “It just shows you how the thinking there is.
“I just have to be honest and be brutal with what I’m saying. It just shows that they don’t really care about human life.
“They don’t care about what is going on in the world. All they care about is how to win the league. The reason why I signed for Trabzonspor last summer was to win the league.
“I gave 100% in every game. But in this situation, where the world is facing such a difficult time, I didn’t feel that football should continue.”
“He was telling me if I didn’t take the post down, I was not going to play until the end of the season,” Mikel says. “I said: ‘OK, if that’s what you guys think, then I am ready to stand by what I’ve said and take the hit for it.’”
Mikel was an unused substitute for the home game against Istanbul Basaksehir on Sunday, with the selection order having come from the club president.
“The president told me: ‘I will tell the coach not to play you,’” Mikel says. “I said: ‘OK.’”
“It was still a risk in terms of passing the virus on, with a lot of accredited people there, and I saw what was going on, I was on the bench,” Mikel says.
“There was no motivation, the players were all scared. There was no handshaking. It didn’t feel right. I just thought: ‘I don’t want to be part of this.’”
The Turkish FA on Thursday agreed to stop the football season.
