French giants Marseille, Rudi Garcia, is desperate to sign Chelsea football player John Mikel Obi, but the player’s reported yearly salary of €3.4m is problematic to him and can scupper the move.
Mikel, who joined the Premier League powerhouse in 2006, has been frozen out of the team by the Blues’ Italian manager, Antonio Conte, who took over the reins at the Stamford Bridge side in the summer.
He was reported to have had challenges at the club side after he took his Nigerian team mates to the Rio Olympics, where they won bronze medal as against his coach’s instructions not to leave.
Rudi Garcia, in an attempt to boost his midfield options, decided to sign the 29-year-old Super Eagles midfilelder, but is facing a brick wall as they may not be able to meet up with his salary conditions.
Acoording to unconfirmed reports, Chelsea are likely to offload Mikel, who has won two Premier League titles, the Champions League and four FA Cups with the club, as he is deemed surplus to requirements by Conte.
It was reported last week that Mikel was ready to quit the club during the January transfer window for first-team football elsewhere.
He said, “Yes, maybe people will say the new manager was upset I left and went to the Olympics, that I didn’t have a pre-season with the team.
“He (Conte) probably thinks I don’t care about the team, things like that.
“But I don’t want to use those excuses. I have to keep training hard and make sure I change the manager’s mind. If not, then we’ll see what happens in January.”
