Sol Campbell wants fans to know he did not ask for a penny back of the £1.7m owed to him by Portsmouth Football Club as the club’s survival was threatened.
Campbell, 48, was captain of the side that won the 2008 FA Cup, but the South Coast club soon fell on hard times.
The club was relegated several times, and entered financial administration twice, before being saved from a High Court liquidation order by the Pompey Supporters Trust in April 2013.
Portsmouth owed Campbell £1.67m in bonuses and image rights – plus another £200,000 in interest.
The former Tottenham and Arsenal star agreed with the administrator that he would not be paid until the club’s financial problems were resolved – and then wrote it off completely because he did not want to further Portsmouth’s problems.
Sol Campbell said he walked away from £1.7m plus interest owed to him by Portsmouth
Campbell led Harry Redknapp’s side to FA Cup glory in 2008, but the club struggled financially
Campbell spoke to Portsmouth website The News to try and clear up misconceptions about the issue. Campbell said: ‘People need to know this because time has passed, but I have been honourable in everything I’ve done.
‘I didn’t get my money, I had to let it go. It was more than £1.6m I was entitled to it but I didn’t want to hamper Pompey moving forward.
‘Another person could have said, ‘No, I want my money’, but I didn’t. No way. I was honourable and let it go. I didn’t take a penny.
‘I’ve been very generous and perhaps people haven’t appreciated that.’
Campbell said his decision to walk away from that money – and from a similar payday at Notts County – came down to a ‘love of football’, and that rather than cashing in on both clubs, he said ‘I got nothing’.
Campbell said that he walked away once it was clear the ‘dire situation’ that the club was in
He said he walked away from the money because Portsmouth is a ‘fantastic club’, and added: ‘In the end, once I knew the dire situation, I wanted to let it go and take it on the chin.’
Campbell said: ‘I believe I did an amazing job at Pompey as a footballer, but the guys in the accounts department haven’t.
‘I stuck to my part of the agreement, I did everything I was entrusted to do and more. I’ve kept us in the Premier League, won the FA Cup, took us into Europe, I did everything right – but they didn’t.’
After several years in the Premier League, Portsmouth currently sit in 9th place in League One.