‘We did everything we could to stop Sol Campbell leaving Tottenham for Arsenal, but there was no chance – he decided he needed to move for his own career’: Spurs executive reveals key details behind controversial transfer

Tottenham Hotspur were left reeling when Sol Campbell decided to leave the club and join bitter rivals Arsenal on a free transfer in the summer of 2001, but Spurs' then director of football David Pleat reveals there was nothing they could do to stop the move from happening.

For Arsenal fans, it's perhaps the greatest Premier League transfer ever - in FourFourTwo 's opinion, it's the second-most controversial move in football history , behind only Luis Figo's switch from Barcelona to Real Madrid .

Tottenham's club captain at the time, Campbell became the first player since Pat Jennings to move from White Hart Lane to Highbury. Crucially, he did so as part of a free transfer, meaning the club he had spent more than a decade at were gaining nothing from the deal whatsoever.

Tottenham tried everything they could to keep Sol Campbell

For Campbell, trophies were the ultimate objective, and he didn't feel Tottenham could help him deliver that ambition, while Arsenal ultimately would.

David Pleat was the director of football at Tottenham at the time, offering Campbell a contract which would have made him the club's highest-ever paid player. That didn't prove enough, however. Pleat and Tottenham's manager George Graham were simply unable to convince the centre-back to stay.

"We did everything we could, but there was no chance – what he was going to get at Arsenal was way out of our range," Pleat exclusively reveals to FourFourTwo . "To be fair to Sol, I’d met him previously with [Alan] Sugar, and Sol believed we weren’t spending enough to get better players in. I told him that it isn’t always possible and you have to be patient.

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"I found him a decent guy. But he decided that he needed to move for his own career.

"Later, Sugar said, 'You and George Graham were so stupid: you should have kept him out of the team and he would have signed because he would’ve lost his England place.' Myself and George had decided that we weren’t going to leave him out and cut our nose off to spite our face. He was the best centre-half we had."