Former Super Eagles player, John Ene Okon, is dead. Okon, who died in a hospital in Calabar, Cross River State on Tuesday, had been suffering from liver problem.
He would have clocked 47 the same day he died.
While speaking with Tribunesport, technical adviser of Rangers FC of Enugu, Imama Amapakabo said Okon’s death was a sad development. “I felt sad after hearing about the death of Okon,” Amapakabo, a member of the Golden Eaglets set of 1985 told Tribunesport by phone.
“John Okon passed on in the early hours of this morning [Tuesday], he was ill; he had been diagnosed with a liver problem and he had been in hospital for sometime now until he passed away at a Calabar hospital around 2.00am and ironically, today happens to be his birthday.
“Okon will be greatly missed, he was my very good friend and one of the best midfielders I know. He will be missed in football circles,” Amapakabo added.
John Ene Okon was a member of the Nigerian U-20 team, the Flying Eagles, to the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Chile in 1987. He was also a member of the Super Eagles team that claimed the bronze in the 1992 Africa Cup of Nations hosted by Senegal.
After he retired as a footballer, Okon, known as ‘Oworowo’ among his colleagues, went into coaching and he handled teams like Calabar Rovers, BCC Lions, Sharks and Julius Berger FC of Lagos