‘I knew exactly what I’d done – I had made a massive mistake. When Chelsea saw what had happened, they were furious’ John Obi Mikel opens up on transfer tug of war

Few transfers in recent history caused the kind of controversy as that of teenage midfielder John Obi Mikel’s move to Chelsea in 2006.

Mikel was one of football’s most sought-after youngsters when he impressed at the FIFA Under-17 World Championships in 2003 and Manchester United thought they had landed the young Nigerian after he had trained with the club, even getting the player to pose in a Manchester United shirt.

But Chelsea soon issued a counter-claim, insisting that they already had an agreement to sign him. The Blues would finally get their man, but nothing about the transfer saga was straightforward, as Mikel himself admits to FourFourTwo.

John Obi Mikel on the battle for his signature

“Back then, you had to be 18 to sign from Africa,” Mikel begins. “I was 16, so Manchester United thought, ‘OK, we will send you home for two or three months, then you can come back and train with the team for another two months’. They would do that until they found a proper solution.

“They sent me back to Nigeria, but then when I was at home, Chelsea found out where I was. They sent an agent, who came with a contract and convinced me to go there instead. Roman Abramovich had bought the club – I thought about it and was like ‘OK, a new history is about to be made at Chelsea’, so I went for trials there. Straight away, Claudio Ranieri wanted me to sign, but again, I couldn’t because I wasn’t 18.

“Instead of sending me back home, though, like Manchester United did, Chelsea arranged for me to go to Norway for a while and play for Lyn Oslo. I had an apartment there and Chelsea were looking after me, my family and my friends.

“I had three Nigerian team-mates with me – Chelsea sent them to Lyn with me to keep me company, so that I wasn’t homesick. They stayed in the same apartment as me. I think they knew what the situation was, which wasn’t good. They were really good players, but they quickly understood that Chelsea weren’t going to sign all of them – maybe they’d sign a couple and send them on loan.

“They weren’t going to play for Chelsea, though – I was the guy they wanted. Chelsea wanted them to keep me company – they were guys I’d played with in Nigeria’s under 20s, we grew up together. I’m still friends with them, too. Chinedu Obasi played in Germany after that, but the other two, Emmanuel Sarki and Ezekiel Bala, didn’t really make it.

“When I turned 18, I played a game for Lyn, Manchester United heard about it and sent their representative to Norway. They met me with a pre-contract, for about £1.5m or something. They came, bamboozled me into a room with the managers of Lyn, with none of my agents there, no representative, no phone call to any of my family, nothing. It was just me, a kid, sitting there and signing a contract. Looking back, that wasn’t right. There should be advice from somebody; it’s unusual for it to happen like that.

“Everything was done on the same day, in about an hour, or an hour and a half. As soon as I signed the contract, a whole press conference had already been arranged to announce that I’d joined Manchester United.

“When we’d finished training that day, I’d told my three Nigerian team-mates, the ones Chelsea had sent there to be with me: “You guys can go home without me.” I didn’t tell them what was happening. They were sitting at home, waiting for me to get home, then they turned on the TV and saw me in this press conference with a Manchester United shirt on! They tried to call me, but my phone wasn’t there; it had already been taken away from me.

“In some of the pictures, you can see from my face what I was thinking while I was wearing that Manchester United shirt in the press conference. I was sitting there thinking to myself, ‘What have you done?’ Straight away, I knew exactly what I’d done – I had made a massive mistake, although I didn’t know it was going to be as huge as it was and that it was going to take almost two years to get sorted.

“When Chelsea saw exactly what had happened, they were furious. They’d sent me to Norway, they were looking after me, they said, ‘No, we’re not letting you go.’ They also sent their agent to Oslo, and it became a war.

“I was taken to a hotel by Lyn and the people from Manchester United, so that nobody knew where I was, and so that Chelsea wouldn’t find out. But Chelsea and my agent found out where I was – in secret, my agent came and smuggled me on to the next flight in the morning. We went to London and Chelsea put me up in a nice apartment close to the stadium. I ended up staying there for about a year, as FIFA tried to get my situation resolved. They couldn’t. The English FA got involved, too.

“It was very flattering that both clubs wanted me – knowing that two of the biggest clubs in the world were fighting over me only elevated my stature as a player. But by that point, I wanted to play football and it became frustrating. Every day I woke up and stared at the ceiling. I wasn’t able to go anywhere, I couldn’t even train, I couldn’t play for anybody, FIFA said I couldn’t go near any football club. Nobody was allowed to see me from any club; I was alone.

“It was a horrible situation – your parents calling you, and other family members, crying down the phone. They wanted to see me play, and I was crying every day because I wanted to play football; it’s what I loved doing. In a way, I missed one or two years of my career sitting there, but it was from my own stupid mistake by signing that contract with Manchester United in Norway. I knew I’d made a mistake.

“Jose Mourinho was the Chelsea boss by then, and during that time, I met him, even though I wasn’t allowed to. There were a lot of clandestine moves that happened so I could meet him – I was taken in a car, which drove me about two or three kilometres and dropped me off, then another car picked me up, took me another two or three kilometres and so on, until I got to the secret location where I met Mourinho. We had a great conversation over lunch and he told me how much he really wanted me to join the club. I knew I had to play for Chelsea.”

Mikel was speaking to FFT in association with streaming platform DAZN