Rashidi Yekini’s Portuguese club Vitoria Setubal will pay their last respect to the fallen star in their final game against Benfica.

The 48-year-old Yekini died Friday in Nigeria.

Yekini enjoyed his best spell at a European club at Vitoria Setubal. He scored 90 goals in 108 appearances for the modest Portuguese club between 1990 and 1994.

According to the former Nigeria youth international Terna Suswam, who now features for Vitoria Setubal, the club plan to honour Yekini by wearing black arm bands and observing a minute silence.

“The players wish to honour Yekini by sporting black arm bands and observing a minute’s silence in our next game against Benfica next week Sunday,” said Suswam.

“This is also our last match of the season but the management will have to approve it.”

“Yekini was a legend at Setubal and the news of his death has really shocked everyone here. All the papers here reported it and people ter he was allegedly taken away from his house at Oni and Sons around Ring Road Ibadan against his will last month.

“I have confirmed beyond any doubt that Yekini was forcefully taken away from his house, he was hand and leg chained and eventually he died,” said Mohammed.

“He has resisted several attempts to take him away and on one such occasion in 2010 the police commissioner in Oyo State Adisa Gbolatan warned that no one should try to take him away by force because Yekini goes beyond a family issue as he is a national hero.

“The commissioner warned then that should any mental examination of the player be conducted, it has to be in the presence of the police as well as government representatives.”

Mohammed added: “I’m ever willing to cooperate with the authorities to really know the circumstances that led to his death. At least, I owe Yekini this because besides being my client, he was my brother and friend.”

Politician and businessman Kunle Michael, who lives close to the departed Eagles star, said the player was forcefully taken away on Easter Day, April 8, by some people very close to him and he never returned home.

“I heard that Yekini died on Friday and I did not believe it. I told myself it could only be another Yekini until Saturday morning when I read the newspapers that I really believed,” said Michael.

“Yekini was a peaceful man in the area, he kept to himself and would not greet people, we all knew him for that. But on Easter Day, some people very close to him came here to force him out of the area without any reasons.

“They attacked him on his way from training at the Liberty Stadium and forced him into his car. What we heard next was that he’s dead.

“Government must investigate how Yekini died.”

Close friends who do not wish to be mentioned also corroborated the forceful eviction of Yekini from his house, adding that a doctor from a psychiatric hospital in Osogbo was part of the group that took him away.

Another businessman who lives behind Yekini’s compound Yomi Ojo was clear that Yekini was killed.

Yekini’s mother said her son suffered from a mental problem since 2010, but Ojo disagreed.

“They said Yekini was mad but how could  a mad man switch on generator himself, drive himself, visit orphanages, give cash to widows and play with the children in the area? Asked  Ojo, who informed that Yekini bought the house from the ex-chairman of Water Corporation Bisi Akande after the 1994 World Cup.

“Government must therefore help us unravel the mysteries leading to his sad death.”