LAST WEDNESDAY, in the Netherlands, none of it seemed to matter. No agents, no contracts, no mandates, no legal action, no delisted Premiership superclubs vying for his services. For 90 minutes it was just about football and John Mikel Obi was just an 18-year-old playing the game.
Actually, that’s not right. The Mikel on display that afternoon for the Nigeria Under-20 team against Ukraine in the World Youth Championships was not just an 18-year-old. He ran the match from midfield with the poise of a veteran. The way he always had time on the ball, the way his team-mates sought him out, the way he hit 40-yard passes with laser-like precision: it all left no doubt why he is at the centre of a vicious transfer wrangle involving Manchester United, Chelsea and Lyn Oslo, the Norwegian club who hold his registration.
He had been scouted from an early age by United and Chelsea but it was John Shittu, one of several agents claiming to represent him, who arranged his move to Oslo’s NTG Academy, organised a student visa for him (he was 17 and, according to Fifa rules, could move abroad only for “non-footballing reasons”) and found him a place with Lyn’s youth team.
On September 8, 2004, he signed a 27-month amateur contract with Lyn. Less than three weeks later, Norwegian immigration officials granted him a work permit. Lyn tried to register him as a professional, but were quickly rebuffed by Fifa, who reminded them that no player under the age of 18 can sign professional terms with a foreign club. So they waited until April 22, 2005, the day he turned 18, and signed him as a professional.
That same day, Mikel wrote to Shittu to say that he was cancelling his representation contract. Four days later, Lyn agreed his move to Manchester United for £6.75 million with an immediate £750,000 downpayment. On April 29, he signed for United.
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“I am really happy to get a chance to play for a big club like United,” he told Kick Off, a Nigerian magazine. “It is a dream come true. (United) won my heart over.” And that’s when it all kicked off. Shittu claimed that Mikel wanted to join Chelsea and that he had been pressured into signing for United.
According to a source, unrelated to Shittu, at the time of signing the only people in the room with Mikel were Morgan Andersen, the Lyn sporting director, Jim Ryan, a Manchester United official, and Matthew Bennett, a lawyer representing the Old Trafford club.
When Shittu reached him the next morning, Mikel was crying and very apologetic. “He said ‘I’m sorry, it was these people (who made me do it)’,” Shittu said. “He said he was forced to sign.”
Andersen does not dispute that no agent was present when Mikel signed, but points out that, because he had turned 18 and had cancelled his representation deal with Shittu the previous week, under Fifa guidelines he was allowed to represent himself. In any case, Andersen says, Mikel was on the phone with his father at the time and was given the contract several days earlier and had time to review it.
Shittu, however, insists that the letter Mikel sent him terminating their representation agreement was forced upon him. A source unrelated to Shittu told The Times that the letter consists of a typewritten document, on Lyn Oslo letterhead, bearing Mikel’s signature at the bottom. Shittu insists that Mikel did not understand what he was signing. “We have been together for 2½ years, I know he would never do such a thing,” Shittu said.
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It was at this point that Shittu flew to Oslo and took Mikel back to London with him, infuriating Lyn and prompting the Norwegians to ask Fifa to intervene. He joined the Nigeria Under-20 squad in the Netherlands. Since leaving Oslo, he has maintained that he never wanted to move to United and that he was effectively forced to sign. “Chelsea remain my choice,” he said on Thursday. “I have always belonged to Chelsea and my heart is there.”
Yet Lyn claim that Mikel’s radical change of heart is a result of pressure from Shittu. The turnaround certainly baffled United. They pursued Mikel in good faith, according to David Gill, the club’s chief executive. “When (Mikel) signed his agreement with us, he was all smiles,” Gill was quoted as saying. “He looked really pleased to be joining us. Everything about his transfer was done legally and in accordance with Fifa rules. We did everything strictly by the book. We dealt with the club first, settled on the fee and then we talked to the player.”
However, a source familiar with the situation maintains that, while it is entirely possible that United acted in good faith in their dealings with Lyn, the player may not have been Lyn’s to sell in the first place. The source revealed the existence of an agreement, signed on September 14, 2004, between Shittu and Lyn in which the Norwegian club agreed not to pursue any financial gain from Mikel’s registration. It was as if the player was just “parked” there.
Shittu supports this, claiming that he paid Mikel’s school fees at NTG as well as providing him with a flat and pocket money. From his perspective, it would appear that Lyn was supposed to be a place for Mikel to train and acclimatise to European football until he was old enough to move.
Andersen does not see it this way. To him, Mikel was a player signed and registered by the club and, as such, Lyn were entitled to sell him to United, particularly as the player himself agreed to the move.
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The dispute now rests with Fifa and it is a case of who it chooses to believe. Both sides are accusing the other of pressuring and intimidating a man who is likely to be overwhelmed by the wrangling about him and can hardly be expected to comprehend fully the legal complexities of the disagreement.
United have a contract in hand, but ultimately it is likely that everything will be trumped by what Mikel says when and if he is called to give evidence. After all, this dispute is about his future, not anyone else’s.
At least, that’s what one would hope . . .