How Fenerbahçe gave me Turkish passport, name to keep me from PSG – Okocha

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Former Super Eagles captain Augustine Okocha, popularly known as Jay Jay Okocha has revealed that Fenerbahçe issued him a Turkish passport under a local name during his two years at the club.

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Okocha said the club took the step after Paris Saint-Germain came in for his signature and Fenerbahçe insisted he was “not for sale.”

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Speaking on the Obi-Wan podcast on Monday, Okocha, popularly known as JJ, said the Turkish club loved him so much that letting him leave became “a good problem” for them.

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He said he was asked to pick a Turkish name for the passport and settled on “Muhammed Yahuz,” borrowed from a member of staff he was fond of at the club.

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“They gave me Turkish passport with Turkish name. They asked me to choose Turkish name, so the easiest one was Muhammed… was a guy that was working for us. So we all loved him, so I picked his name,” Okocha said.

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Okocha said the passport became necessary because Fenerbahçe refused to let him go when PSG’s interest emerged, forcing him to briefly withdraw from training to push the move through.

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“When PSG came, they said I’m not leaving, I can’t leave, I’m not for sale. So I had to run away, stop training,” he said.

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He added that it was a mark of how much the club valued him.

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“It was a problem for me to leave. They didn’t want me to leave, which is a good problem,” Okocha said.

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The former Bolton Wanderers captain narrated a light-hearted moment when he nearly missed being addressed by his own adopted name on a flight, as he was not yet used to travelling with the Turkish document.

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“The first day I was travelling with this passport, I sat down on my seat. So they were telling me, ‘Welcome Mr. Yahuz.’ I didn’t know I was the one they were talking to. I forgot my name,” he said.

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Okocha said he eventually left Fenerbahçe for PSG in 1998 after a transfer saga that saw him briefly stop training to force the move through.

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He said he still travels back to Turkey with the passport today, though he is mostly still called “JJ” by people who recognise him.

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“Some sometimes they don’t even know. Some they don’t know that I’m the one,” he said.

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Okocha spent two seasons in Turkey after joining Fenerbahçe from Eintracht Frankfurt, before completing a move to PSG for a fee reported at the time to be the most expensive paid for an African footballer.

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