Everyone knows John Mikel Obi; he is a Chelsea legend and a hero for the Nigerian national team.
In a recent interview with popular news publishing site, The Athletic, the Champions League winner flashed back on his time at Chelsea and how he nearly came to blows with Antonio Conte.
Antonio Conte had just arrived Chelsea in 2016 and John Mikel Obi said to him he wanted to go represent his country Nigeria at the Olympics after he was called up by the national team.
The Olympics clashed with the opener of the new premier league season.
Antonio Conte got pissed and refused to let him go, he warned Mikel by telling him that he would not play under him if he left for the competition.
However, the Chelsea board had given Mikel the go-ahead to go represent his country at the competition but Conte stuck to his word and he never played for the Blues again, leaving for the Chinese Super League in January.
Mikel, while speaking to The Athletic, said:
“This guy who has just walked in the door for five minutes is telling me I had to choose.
“He was saying, ‘If you do that, you won’t be a part of this team’.
“I spoke to the club and told them that I wanted to go.
“The club respected me because of what I had done for them and how long I’d been there.
“So off I went and I felt punished for that. I came back and I didn’t make the squad. I was never in the squad list on match days again.”
However, it didn’t stop there another thing happened, Mikel and Conte would clash one more time before he left.
Mikel was already getting prepared to move to Tianjin TEDA when January transfer window was getting closer the Chelsea board had scrapped his contract out of respect for his many years.
He added: “The funny thing is, just before the January window was going to start, he came up to me and said ‘I want a meeting with you’.
“This was after making me train on my own for months, treating a player who had been at Chelsea for a long time like this!
“When he tried to meet with me he was like, ‘Let’s try and make up, I will need you in the team, let’s squash this, blah, blah, blah!’.
“I was like, ‘Are you joking?! Are you f****** serious?!’ He knew I wanted out.
“I stood up and walked out of the room. You can’t disrespect a human being like that.”
