Former Super Eagles captain, John Mikel Obi, could still be playing active football if he had heeded the wise counsel of his former agent, John Shittu, against joining the Chinese Super League side, Tianjin Teda, in 2017.
The Nigerian international, who spent more than a decade at Chelsea, joined the Chinese club on a free transfer for a reported weekly wage of £140,000. However, he cancelled his contract a year before it was due to run out and returned to England to join Middlesbrough.
Speaking recently to journalists in Abuja, Shittu believes that Mikel, who retired from professional football last year, would still be playing in England if he had listened to his advice against moving to China. He urged Nigerian players currently doing well at their clubs not to fall into the antics of managers or agents who want to cash in on them and move them around.
“My biggest advice is always to the players because they themselves are not very reliable; they want to cut corners. Mikel and I had a lot of disagreements, but in most cases, I stood my ground with a lot of advice. That was why, in Nigeria today, he was a world-class representative of this country. Though he has retired, you can see that a young boy has grown up to be a real man.”
“Some of the players doing well now need to be careful and not just jump around. They shouldn’t feel that they need to move just because they are at the top now. They should make sure everything is well thought out because we have seen a lot of players who are kings in their clubs, but for one reason or the other, the manager or agent wants to cash out quickly and move them from the club to where they will become just ordinary players. Look at Eden Hazard today, from Chelsea to Real Madrid. Did he need to move from Chelsea at that time he moved?”
“Even my own player, Mikel Obi, when he went to China, he was not supposed to go. I was against him moving to China, and he could have possibly still been playing football in England till today,” Shittu said.
After his two-year stay in China, Mikel warned young players not to be tempted to move to China because of the big money.
Source: https://leadership.ng/i-warned-mikel-against-going-to-china-agent/
