John Swift sends message to ex-West Brom team-mate Tom Rogic as retirement announced | OneFootball

The surprise retirement of Australian midfielder Tom Rogic was confirmed on Tuesday morning at the age of just 30.

Rogic, who was capped 53 times for the Socceroos at senior level and scored 10 times, was best known for his long stint with Celtic in Scotland, where he became a household name.

In his nine-year career at Celtic Park, Rogic played 273 times, scored 46 goals and also assisted on 49 occasions as well, and was a prolific trophy winner with the Hoops.

Rogic won the Scottish Premiership six times and both the Scottish Cup and Scottish League Cup five times, with four trebles won during his time north of the border.

Having played for West Brom last season, Rogic has been a free agent since the end of June, but has now opted to walk away from the game.

Why has Tom Rogic retired?

In a lengthy post via the Instagram app, Rogic has revealed that he is choosing to hang his boots up at the age of 30 due to personal, family reasons.

The midfielder detailed his struggles of being able to conceive a child with his wife due to fertility issues, which lasted for the best part of seven years, only to welcome a daughter into the world two years ago.

Struggles have continued though since then but in better news, the couple are now expecting twins to be born next year, and Rogic now wants to focus on caring for his family rather than dividing his time between that and football.

Therefore, he has already moved back to his homeland of Australia and will put down roots there after choosing to walk away from his career on the pitch, but in his Instagram post he did not mention West Brom in name - although he did tag their official account on the post.

How did Tom Rogic perform for West Brom?

Signing for the Baggies in September 2022 a few months after his Celtic departure, although there was a change of managers just a few weeks after his arrival from Steve Bruce to Carlos Corberan.

The Spaniard never really favoured Rogic when it came to picking his starting 11, often utilising him from the substitutes bench and there were matches where the midfielder was not used at all.

Corberan's explanation was that Rogic only really fitted a system where a 'number 10' was utilised, but this wasn't always in his gameplan, meaning that he appeared just 23 times for Albion and just seven of those were starts.

What has John Swift said about Tom Rogic's retirement?

A team-mate of Rogic's for nearly the whole of the 2022-23 season, Baggies midfielder John Swift has sent a message to the Aussie following his decision to hang up his boots at a rather young age.

"All the very best to you and your family roggy," Swift wrote on Rogic's Instagram post to confirm he was stepping away from the game.

"congrats (sic) on an incredible career."

When it came to being picked by the Baggies last season, Swift and Rogic were direct rivals with both of their primary positions being in attacking midfield, but it's clear to see that there was a good relationship between the two.