Super Eagles’ coach, Gernot Rohr is backing the team’s former captain, John Mikel Obi in his decision to leave Trabzonspor of Turkey, as the Franco-German gaffer believes everyone in the football world will support the player in his stand against playing football during the lockdown caused by coronavirus, megasportsarena.com reports.
Although Trabzonspor’s officials took offence with Mikel going public with his condemnation of the Turkish Super Lig authorities for continuing play at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, and eventually tried to force him to remove his post on social media, Rohr says the former Chelsea of England star did the right thing in sticking by his principle, which eventually led to him leaving the league leaders by mutual consent.
The development left Mikel cutting short his contract with the Trabzon-based club, which was meant to run until June 2021 and he headed back to his family in England, but remains club less for now, all of which Rohr opined was a positive sacrifice that everyone in the football world will back the Rio 2016 Olympics and Africa Cup of Nations 2019 bronze medalist for taking in the interest of his family and for everyone concerned about the spread of coronavirus.
The ex-Niger Republic, Gabon and Burkina Faso handler, who disclosed that he has personally set aside part of his salary in contribution to the fight against the highly contagious respiratory ailment, even as he is currently negotiating a possible extension of his contract that is set to run out at the end of June, stressed that Mikel took the right step to show the need for a lockdown.
As fate would have it, Mikel has now drawn transfer interest from two Brazilian clubs, Botafogo and Internacional, with high expectations that he will make the move to either of the duo as a free agent when the transfer window opens for business, and Rohr believes it would be a highly justified compensation for the Nigerian star, who gave up a total of 3.375m euros in wages by cancelling his deal with Trabzonspor.
Rohr told Radio France Internationale: “It is a noble gesture, he was right to do it even if he finds himself without a club today. You can’t threaten the health of the players. Many people have supported Obi Mikel, not just in Africa. He could count on the solidarity of the football family, it is very important.”
