Obiorah released by Lokomotiv

Injury recovery
The 24-year-old, who scored for the Russian club against FC Barcelona and Real Madrid CF in the UEFA Champions League this season, has been recovering from injury and was placed in the reserves as part of his recovery.

Declines to join side
However when moved back into the first-team squad for an away game against FC Chernomorets Krasnodarskiy Kray, which Lokomotiv won 5-2, Obiorah declined to join the side.

'Not needed'
Lokomotiv have therefore announced that they will be terminating Obiorah's contract, which expires this summer in any case. "A player who [has] missed more than 90 per cent of games in the season due to some unsatisfactory reasons is not needed by the team," said Lokomotiv president Valeri Filatov.

'Lose our patience'
"We should have been more decisive towards Obiorah and made this decision earlier," he continued. "His most recent actions did make us lose our patience with him, and now we will be acting without any remorse."

'Battling to win'
Coach Yuri Semin said that the decision had nothing to do with the poor start to the season that sees Lokomotiv languishing in eleventh place. "We have chosen a group of players which do not like losing so easily and will be battling to win every game," he said. "Obiorah, Thabo Mnguni and Julio Cesar were sent to the reserves, but Obiorah did not react to this decision properly."

World Cup place
Obiorah joined Lokomotiv in 2001 from Grasshopper-Club of Switzerland. He scored 14 goals in 2001, including the strike which won the club a place in the Champions League. In 2002 Obiorah scored only five times but was still a member of Nigeria's squad for the FIFA World Cup in Korea/Japan.