Nigeria and Chelsea legend John Obi Mikel has officially announced his retirement from football.
Mikel made the announcement on his personal Instagram account on Tuesday afternoon. He was recently in the books of Kuwait SC.
He retires at the age of 35 after 20 years in the professional set-up. Mikel also turned out for teams such as Middlesbrough and Stoke City.
“There is a saying that “all good things must come to an end”, and for my professional football career, that day is today,’ read the post.
“I look back at the past 20 years of my career, and I must say that I am very satisfied with all that I was able to achieve and more importantly the human it has helped shape.
“‘I will also like to encourage everyone who I may have inspired one way or the other in the course of my career to never give up on their dreams, for every time you think about quitting, remind yourself why you started.”
“This is not goodbye, it’s the start of another journey, another chapter of my life. I look forward to what the future holds and I hope you will walk with me. Thank you,” Mikel wrote.
The midfielder lifted every major honour at Chelsea, which included two Premier League titles, the Champions League and the Europa League, among others. He clocked up a mammoth 372 appearances in a Chelsea shirt.
He also made 91 appearances for the Super Eagles national team.
Mikel represented the Nigeria Under 20 team at the 2005 FIFA World Youth Championship and won the second-best player at the tournament, behind Lionel Messi. He made his debut for the Nigeria senior team in August 2005.
In July 2019, he announced that the 2019 African Cup of Nations would be his last tournament for Nigeria and retired at the end of the competition, in which Nigeria came third.
