Jamie Carragher has claimed that Liverpool attempted to sign Sol Campbell before his controversial sale to Arsenal in 2001.
The former England international infamously joined the Gunners on a Bosman transfer from bitter rivals Tottenham Hotspur, despite previously stating that he would stay at Spurs and never play for Arsenal, after being offered a new contract that would have made him the club’s highest-paid player.
However, despite months of discussions and public assurances that he would stay, the centre-back announced he needed to go in order to play Champions League football. Several prominent European clubs expressed interest in signing Campbell at the time, but he controversially chose to join Arsenal on a free transfer.
He was a Tottenham icon before transferring to North London. Coming through the club’s youth, he made 315 appearances for the club over nine years, scoring 15 goals and leading them to League Cup victory in 1999.
Campbell is still despised by Tottenham fans after more than two decades. But Carragher has admitted that he has little sympathy for his former England teammate, claiming that his colleague centre-back, who was also courted by Liverpool, should never have moved across North London.
“You can’t make that move, you can’t do that,” he remarked of Campbell’s contentious departure while debating football’s biggest traitors on The Overlap Fan Debate, sponsored by Sky Bet. “We all know football fans are emotional; they hold things in, and they never forget. Sometimes you think it’s a little over the top.
“But that one, I don’t have any sympathy for Sol Campbell. You can’t go from a local player to your main opponents.
“Because he had different possibilities. I believe he could have gone to Barcelona; I know we were interested in him at the time, and Liverpool was not his only option. You simply cannot do it.
“I was astounded when, I remember, White Hart Lane hosted its final game and invited all of the great. They did not invite Sol Campbell, which made him quite furious.
“What are you expecting? There was no chance he would ever be invited back. “He was a great player, though.”
Gary Neville would joke that Carragher is a football traitor himself, given that the Liverpool legend grew up as an Everton fan. And, while he initially backed the Blues throughout his early Reds career, he explained when his loyalty shifted.
“I was a huge Everton fan. “Even when I was playing for Liverpool,” he remembered. “In the reserves, if there was a Derby, I wanted Everton to win.
“The substitutions increased from two or three to five for the first time in 1996. We had recently won the Youth Cup, so I was 18. I was on the bench when Liverpool played their opening game of the season away to Middlesbrough, when Fabrizio Ravanelli scored a three trick.
“However, Newcastle’s first game of the season came against Everton at Goodison Park, and Alan Shearer made his Premier League debut for Newcastle. Everton were leading 2-0 at halftime.
“I went out to warm up at halftime as a substitute. My dad was in the audience, and I was telling him, ‘It’s 2-0!’
“It wasn’t like I went to Liverpool and that was it (for supporting Everton), but you get into derby games for Liverpool, start playing for Liverpool, and start getting vocal comments on the street or when you go out for a drink. It moves slowly from one end to the other.
“We were defeated by Manchester United a few of years into my career (in 1999), and when we returned to the pub, there were only Everton fans waiting. They scored twice in the last minute.
“I just walked into the local, thinking, ‘I’ll just go for a drink,’ and everyone was laughing, singing, and dancing. I figured they could f**k off! “That was it!”
