Dutch football legend Clarence Seedorf announced to his more than one million Instagram followers on Friday that he had converted to Islam.
Posting a photo of himself accompanied by his wife, the former AC Milan, Real Madrid, and Ajax midfielder, expressed his gratitude for all the nice messages he has received in celebration of his joining the Muslim family.
He also mentioned his wife’s important role in teaching him more in-depth about the meaning of Islam. Seedorf and his wife, Canadian-Iranian businessman Sophia Makramati have been living in Dubai for two years.
However, Seedorf explained that he would not change his name and would continue to carry the name that his parents gave him.
The good news is warmly welcomed by his fans, the Instagram post in which he announced his conversion to Islam later got more than 369,000 likes from his 1.3M followers. His comments were flooded with fans who welcomed and congratulated Seedorf for converting to Islam, most of whom wrote “Welcome to Islam.
Seedorf is the only player in football history to have won four Champions League titles with three different clubs. An achievement that has not even been achieved by Lionel Messi and Christiano Ronaldo.
He won the Champions League in 1995 with Ajax, in 1998 with Real Madrid, and in 2003 and 2007 with AC Milan. He also won one La Liga title with Real Madrid in 1997 and two Serie A titles with AC Milan in 2004 and 2011 throughout his remarkable career.
The talented and versatile player has represented the Netherlands National Team 87 times and played in three UEFA European Football Championships and the 1998 FIFA World Cup, and reached the semi-finals of the latter three tournaments.
After retiring from the field, he went on to become manager of several teams including AC Milan and the Cameroon national team.
Last year, he joined former UFC champion Khabib Nurmagomedov, one of the most prominent Season athletes of the last decades, in launching the Seedorf Khabib Performance Club, a football academy that uses a unique training method that combines soccer and mixed martial arts.
