Former Nigeria captain has parted ways by mutual consent from his Turkish Club Trabzonspor the club announced on Tuesday.

Mikel joined the Turkish league leaders at the start of the season as has played a crucial role for the purple and blue playing in 19 games before deciding his time with the team was up.

The 32 year old will forfeit the rest of his wages after leaving the club in what has shocked many fans in Turkey and Nigeria.

Per a statement released on Tuesday, the Super Lig club said; “The professional football player agreement between our company and John Obi Mikel on 30.06.2019 start date 31.05.2021 has been mutually terminated. With a mutual termination agreement, the football player gave up all his forward-looking receivables”.

Though the club did not reveal why his deal was terminated, it might have to do with Mikel’s vocal stance about playing when the coronavirus has reached a pandemic state in Europe.

The former Chelsea player had last week criticised the Turkish league of allowing the league continue despite the prevalence of the Covid-19 virus and called for it to be suspended.

Trabzonspor are currently top of the Turkish Super League with 53 points from 26 matches.