Obada retires from NFL to pursue ‘true calling’Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Efe Obada met King Charles in February 2025 at an event to showcase the charitable work being done by the NFL and Tottenham HotspurByBen CollinsBBC Sport journalistPublished8 minutes agoEfe Obada spent 10 years as an NFL player yet only now does he feel he has found his true calling.After spending the 2025 season without a team, the 34-year-old Briton officially confirmed his retirement on Wednesday.And to coincide with the announcement, Obada has launched his own foundation, which will help care-experienced people aged between 11 and 25.”It resonates with me so much because I’ve lived it,” he tells BBC Sport. “I know about the barriers, the isolation.”Obada lived in more than 10 foster homes after being trafficked from the Netherlands and abandoned in London at the age of 10.He went on to make a remarkable journey to the NFL, where his career earnings were more than $8m (£6m).”I now have the means and resources to have real impact on something that I hold very dear,” he added. “It’s everything to me. I feel like it’s my life’s purpose.”How Obada ended up in foster careObada was born in Nigeria and lived with his father before being trafficked to the Netherlands to reunite with his mother.He and his sister, who was 11 and has learning difficulties, were then taken to the UK by a stranger who left them on a street in east London.
They ended up in the care of social services, who kept Obada and his sister together and placed them with black families in south London. In the worst of those situations, he has mentioned they were treated like domestic slaves.
Obada managed to progress at school and college, and wanted to study architecture at university, but his progress was blocked because he was still classed as an illegal immigrant.
“I was an undocumented person so I couldn’t go to university, couldn’t get a career,” he says. “It had to be cash-in-hand jobs. My life was going a certain direction.”
As Obada sought a sense of belonging, he began mixing with the wrong crowd and lived with “some undesirable people”.
“I was living in such dysfunction and toxicity, and everybody around me was too,” he says. “It was just chaos and survival. And I didn’t recognise that until I started sharing my life with people from different walks of life.
“They were like, ‘oh, that’s a bit messed up, you know’. So I started taking stock and realised that maybe I am worth more, maybe I do deserve better.”
