Nigeria suffered a blow less than a week from the start of the World Cup as they announced midfielder John Obi Mikel had been left out of the squad because he did not want to aggravate a knee injury.

The 23-year-old Chelsea star - who follows club team-mates Michael Ballack, Michael Essien and possibly Didier Drogba in missing out on the finals because of injury - has been replaced by the striker Brown Ideye from Sochaux in France's Ligue 1.

"We have dropped Mikel from the World Cup squad after he told the team he did not want to put his career at risk as his knee injury has yet to fully heal after a recent surgery," said team official Emmanuel Attah on Saturday morning.

Ideye, a former Nigerian youth team representative, is yet to receive a full international cap.

Mikel has been a huge doubt for the World Cup as he last played for Chelsea in April.

Before this big injury blow, coach Lars Lagerback had been confident that Mikel would play a part in Sunday's warm-up game against North Korea.

However, others had been concerned that Nigeria were taking a big chance on Mikel after he did not play in the team's two build-up games against Saudi Arabia and Colombia.

He was the last player to join up with the rest of the squad at their training camp in Essex, England, last week and in South Africa, he cut short his work out with the team for two straight days.

Nigeria are drawn in Group B along with two-time champions Argentina, Euro 2004 winners Greece and 2002 World Cup semi-finalists South Korea and play their first match on June 12 against Argentina.

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