Trabzonspor have prematurely ended their contract with Nigeria midfielder, Mikel Obi, after just nine months with the club, Sports Extra reports.

Mikel joined the Turkish club in June 2019, on a two-year contract as a free agent. But after he made a statement on his Instagram handle calling for the Turkish Lig to be suspended following the coronavirus pandemic, the club had a meeting with him on Tuesday, March 17th, 2020 and mutually terminated his contract.

Trabzonspor confirmed Mikel’s contract termination in a statement on their website.

The professional football player agreement between our company and John Mikel on 30.06.2019 start date to 31.05.2021 has been mutually terminated. With the mutual termination agreement, the football player has given up all his forward-looking receivables.

Though the statement didn’t say the reason for the sudden termination, but many believe that it was as a result of his comments on coronavirus.

Mikel had on Saturday, March 14th, 2020 posted on Instagram that he did not feel comfortable playing with the threat of the coronavirus ravaging the world.

There is more to life than football. I do not feel comfortable and don’t want to play football in this situation. Everyone should be home with their families and loved ones in this critical time. The season should be cancelled as the world is facing such turbulent times,

Mikel wrote on his Instagram post.

Mikel’s manager, Necdet Ergezen, in a chat with a Turkish-based website 61saat.com disclosed that the decision to terminate the midfielder’s contract was mutual and that he had gotten all his outstanding payments.

After the coronavirus epidemic around the world, he (Mikel) was uneasy with his family due to the closing of the borders in Europe and the measures in England. He wanted to be with his children in this process. We talked about the situation with the management from Saturday and talked to Obi. He has no receivables, he got all his payments.

The 32-year-old Nigerian midfielder had been an outstanding member of the team, and had featured nineteen (19) times for the club and pivoting them to the top of the Turkish league table.

Justin Nwosu

Justin Nwosu is the founder and publisher of Flavision. His core interest is in writing unbiased news about Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. He’s a strong adherent of investigative journalism, with a bent on exposing corruption, abuse of power and societal ills.