Deco has declared he intends to leave Chelsea after the World Cup to return home to Brazil.

The Portugal midfielder wants to become more involved in the school he has built for his hometown.

Deco says the institute has become so important to him that once the season and the World Cup have passed, he will leave his Surrey home and the "many, many friends" at Chelsea and go back to Brazil to live for a couple of years, to see whether he can expand it. He wants it to cater for 800.

He told the Sunday Times: "It will be strange to leave Chelsea but with football this is always the way. One day you will be an ex-player at a club. My friend Mike, a doctor in Brazil, was telling me that one day I will be an ex-footballer but he will never be an ex-doctor. In most jobs you do not become an ex-doctor or an ex-engineer or an ex-dentist, you build up your career slowly, getting better and better at what you do.

"With a footballer you can't do that, you have to achieve something when you are young, stay as long as possible, then it's over. I'll be very nostalgic when I leave Chelsea."