Soccer: Big bucks betrayal proves fans don't matter

By BRIAN VINER

As acts of treachery go, Sol Campbell's decision to leave Tottenham Hotspur for their North London rivals Arsenal for a reported £20 million ($65.8 million), places the Spurs defender right up there - or is it down there - with those KGB all-stars Kim Philby, Guy Burgess and Donald MacLean.

An over-excited analogy? I don't think so. Admittedly, Campbell's betrayal will not lead to any messy executions in the dead of night, or so we hope.

But it is one thing to stab your country in the back - countries have no sense of feeling - and quite another to stab in the back thousands of fans who have worshipped the ground you have ripped up with your slide-tackles.

Of course, Campbell is not the first to leave his club for a deadly rival. What stinks is that he has made such play of his affection for the club and its fans, affection now revealed to be worthless.

I hold no candle for either Spurs or Arsenal; I merely write with the informed detachment of a man who still loves football, even though it treats its fans with increasing contempt. Nothing illustrates this sad reality quite like the Campbell transfer. Yes, a chap has to do what's best for his career. And Campbell, who joined Spurs as a trainee back in 1991, can certainly be forgiven for wanting to move on.

But he was wooed by Barcelona, Internazionale, of Milan, and Bayern Munich, the European champions, all bigger clubs than Arsenal, before opting to point his expensive car to Highbury.

He says it was not about money, and that is probably true. After all, what can you buy with £130,000 a week ($452,000) that you can't quite manage with £100,000?

No, the brutal truth of it, I think, is that he is not big enough emotionally to contemplate a move overseas. That's the thing with top footballers. They may be tough, strong and richer than Croesus, but more often than not they are little boys trapped inside men's bodies.

When negotiating with Barcelona, Campbell insisted on a clause allowing him to fly home to London once a month. That was hardly the act of a mature man.

Even the former Liverpool striker, Ian Rush, like Campbell a simple soul, overcame his misgivings to join Juventus, of Turin. And, to his credit, he worked hard on learning a few phrases of Italian.

He knew that hundreds of Juventus fans would gather at the airport to greet him, and wanted to pay them the compliment of addressing them in their own language.

On the plane going over he rehearsed his lines diligently, but when he stepped up to the cluster of microphones, his nerve failed him. He managed only one word, and it was in English. "Welcome."

Still, at least he had the courage to go. Not so Campbell, who, in his inadequate defence, claims that he is more likely to stay in the England reckoning by playing in the Arsenal back four.

Arsene Wenger, Arsenal's shrewd French manager, encouraged this conviction by pointing out that Sven Goran Eriksson, the England coach, would see more of him in North London than in Barcelona.

But I suspect Wenger knows that he was talking cock de poppy. Had Campbell thrived in Spanish or Italian football, where standards are higher than in the English premiership, he would have become an even more attractive proposition for Eriksson.

On the other hand, it is reassuring when British assets stay in Britain. Perhaps the neutrals among us should celebrate Campbell's decision to join the Gunners and give thanks he didn't choose Manchester United instead.

And perhaps it is a good thing that all those young Tottenham supporters with their Sol Campbell replica shirts have learnt a bitter lesson early. That they don't damn well matter.

- INDEPENDENT