Former Nigeria youth international, Obinna Nwobodo, has turned down a lucrative transfer to America, so he could help save his Turkish club from relegation.
The former Enugu Rangers midfield Trojan has been the best player for modest Goztepe as they battle to retain their place in the Super Lig in Turkey.
He is rated amongst the top 3 defensive midfielders in the country’s premier league competition and his exploits have shot him into the limelight as a top transfer target for a number of clubs in the current winter transfer window.
However, the 25 year-old has pledged his loyalty to Goztepe and turned down the chance of cashing on his superb form this season.
The Izmir-based club stated this in a press release signed by Aktuğ Sönmez, a board member of Göztepe who is in charge of players’ transfers at the club: “Obinna Nwobodo, to whom many clubs made transfer offers, does not think of leaving the yellow-red team. There are attractive transfer offers for him.”
Sönmez stated that club president Mehmet Sepil talked to Obinna about this issue and said: “Obinna’s decision on this matter was of great importance. Our player shared his opinion with our president.
“Obinna conveyed that he did not intend to leave Göztepe, and that the only focus at the moment is Göztepe’s success.
“For this beautiful and exemplary behavior, both Turkish football and Göztepe Thank you very much to our player.”
SCORENigeria.com.ng can exclusively report that one of the offers that Gotzepe received for Nwobodo was from high-flying Major League Soccer (M.L.S) team, F.C Cincinnati, who were ready to pay $3m( about N1.65b) to price the player away and offered him a contract that would have seen him triple his current salary.
As Cincinnati pursued their interest, Nwobodo was not distracted as he put up a Man of the Match performance that saw Goztepe record an impressive 2-1 victory away at Yeni Malatyaspor last Friday.
He provided the assist for the winning goal in the 73rd minute to cap a great individual performance.
He was also outstanding in Göztepe’s 4-0 victory over Antalyaspor in the previous round of games.
These two results have seen the team move out of the relegation spots as they are now placed 16th on the 20-team table.
With vast improvement and visible move to 5 major Leagues in Europe Obinna Nwobodo will soon join SE