MIKEL Obi has narrated how he was forced out of Chelsea by Antonio Conte because of his decision to play for Nigeria at the Rio 2016 men’s football event.
The former Super Eagles captain left Chelsea in 2017 for China after over a decade at the Premier League club, and just six months after Conte joined as manager.
“Conte was the reason I left Chelsea. When he came in he was like ‘you’re not playing anymore’, then I left,” Mikel said on Rio Ferdinand’s ‘Vibe With Five’ podcast.
“Obviously when I saw Kante as well coming to the club I thought ‘my time here is up’.
“The only reason was that when he (Conte) came in, me and Victor Moses were invited to go with the national team to the Olympics. So I had a conversation with the club and Conte said if I went to the Olympics I was never going to play for the club anymore.
“He was like ‘I’m the new manager, I’m here, we need to talk about the club.
“I was like ‘I’ve been invited by the national team to go and represent the country at the Olympics’ and he said ‘if you go just know that your time here is done’.”
Mikel stuck to his guns and represented Nigeria at the Olympics where they won bronze.
But he had no ill-feelings towards Moses who stayed behind and helped Chelsea win the Premier League title at the end of Conte’s first campaign.
“So me and Victor talked about it and he obviously stayed. I was much older so I said to Victor ‘listen, I’ve been here a long time and I’ve won everything that I needed to win and done everything that I needed to do at the club. You’ve just come come in, it’s better you stay’,” Mikel noted.
“After the tournament I came back and that was it. He (Conte) never spoke to me and he sent me to the reserve team and I was training with the reserves. And then I started training alone for a while. For like six months I did this.”
Conte did want Mikel to return to the Chelsea side during a difficult spell but the midfielder said he turned down the offer.
“I remember there was a period of time when the team started playing really, really badly and he called me into his office. He still wanted me to play,” Mikel added.
“He said ‘we’re not performing really well, is it OK if you want to come back?’ I said ‘no, thank you very much’.
“I’d already made up mind that I was leaving Chelsea anyways. I spoke with a few guys, including Didier Drogba, and he said ‘listen, once it starts happening like this just find you way out, just go and try something new’.”
Mikel, 36, went on to play for Tianjin TEDA in China, Stoke City, Middlesbrough, Trabzonspor and Kuwait SC before retiring in 2021.
PHOTO: Mikel Obi (left) showing off his Rio 2016 Olympics bronze medal.
