There’s no art to buying top footballers when your coffers are full, and you don’t know what to do with the money. A clever and experienced manager can sometimes get a quality player for free. The following chapters feature ten big-name players who didn’t cost their new employers a penny on the transfer market. From Paul Pogba to Ruud Gullit and Sol Campbell, the following are the 11 best footballers who moved to a new club for free!
Try mentioning Sol Campbell’s name in front of Tottenham Hotspur fans and you’ll see how much hatred they continue to have for the English defender more than twenty years after he left the club. Former Albion international spent just under nine seasons at White Hart Lane and was one of the mainstays of the team.
When he was due to run out of contract in 2001, he was offered a new deal by Spurs that would have made him the highest-paid player in the club’s history. At first, Campbell agreed, but then he flipped, refusing to sign the contract and heading to his biggest rival – Arsenal – for nothing. To Tottenham fans, Liverpool’s Campbell has been the Judas who betrayed the club ever since.
He spent the next five seasons at Arsenal, during which time he won the Premier League twice and the FA Cup three times and was named PFA Player of the Season twice. Campbell then headed to Portsmouth in 2006, from where, via a brief stint at Notts County, he returned to Arsenal in 2010. He retired from the Newcastle United jersey a year later.
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