ANKARA
A 37-year-old French football star, veteran forward Thierry Henry, announced his retirement Tuesday with a social network message.
Henry played for the famous English Premier League club Arsenal for eight seasons and the Spanish La Liga giants Barcelona for three years.
The football star announced his retirement on his official Facebook account.
"After 20 years in the game, I have decided to retire from professional football. It has been an incredible journey and I would like to thank all the fans, teammates and individuals involved with Monaco, Juventus, Arsenal, Barcelona, New York Red Bulls and, of course, the French National Team that have made my time in the game so special," he said.
"It is now time for a different career path and I am pleased to say that I will be returning to London and joining Sky Sports," he added.
Sky Sports is a U.K. and Ireland based sports TV channel, which currently holds English Premier Leauge live broadcasting rights.
"I hope you have enjoyed watching as much as I have enjoyed taking part," he said.
Henry recently played for a U.S. Major League Soccer team, New York Red Bulls, for four-and-a-half years. He left the club in the early days of December after his team Red Bulls was eliminated from the conference finals.
During his professional football career, the French star witnessed several league titles, including one French Ligue 1 title with Monaco in 1997, two English Premier League titles in 2002 and 2004 with Arsenal; and two back-to-back Spanish La Liga titles with Barcelona in 2009 and 2010.
Also, Henry helped Barca win the UEFA Champions League title and the UEFA Super Cup and the FIFA World Cup trophies in 2009, when the Catalan giants lived their golden era by sweeping all domestic and international trophies, including La Liga, Spanish King's Cup and Spanish Super Cup.
The former Arsenal and Barcelona star was also one of the integral parts of the French National Football Team since he helped "Les Bleus" (The Blues) get crowned as the 1998 FIFA World Cup, UEFA Euro 2000 and 2003 FIFA Confederations Cup winners.
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