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Lord Alan Sugar rues Campbell exit at Spurs

Lord Alan Sugar admits he could have got £18 million for Sol Campbell © Getty Images

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Lord Alan Sugar has told ESPNsoccernet that his biggest regret during his time as Tottenham chairman was "keeping my mouth shut and being a little mouse" over the likes of George Graham and Sol Campbell.

Sugar, who is launching his autobiography What You Get Is What You See, feels he kept far too quiet about some of his big-name manager and players.

"My main regret about my years in football was keeping my mouth shut like a little mouse, not daring to speak out because I was told you left the managers to get on with the job and that the chairman must never interfere with the manager's decisions or the performance of his team," he told ESPNsoccernet. "It was not the done thing.

"Yet one or two of my managers were very subtle in the way they would use their mates in the media to feed them poison about me and knife me in the back. I should clarify this comment because I also dealt with some complete gentleman in my time in football. Gerry Francis was one, Christian Gross another and to a certain extent David Pleat as well, and so none of my comments should be attributable to them.

"But take George Graham for example. Now here is a manager I should have opened my mouth about, should have interfered. I didn't and to this day I don't know why. What rankles with me is this image that I was stingy with the club's cash, and didn't buy enough players, but that was far from the truth. Under Graham, we kept on buying players, more players than ever before, spending more than ever before, yet every time he spoke to the media, he kept repeating that he needed three or four more players.

"I should have been speaking out and saying that he came to us with a huge reputation, and I appointed him even though so many people advised me not to, and where was his skill, where was his brilliance, in coaching the players he bought and turning them into a good team? Where were those management skills I was told about that convinced me to give him the job in the first place?"

Sugar also expresses his regret over Campbell, who left Spurs on a free transfer to join arch-rivals Arsenal in 2001.

"It was the same with some players - Sol Campbell was one of them. He kept on saying how much he loved the club and would stay, and hadn't made up his mind about signing a new contract. Unfortunately, George Graham and David Pleat kept believing that they could persuade him to stay and told me to leave it to them and that they would get him to re-sign.

"But for the whole of his final year at the club, I just knew he wouldn't re-sign. His agent, Sky Andrews, told me he had worked it. If his transfer value was £18 million and he could earn £2 million a year, over a five-year contract, that was an investment of £28 million. So, Sky knew he could ask a club for £25 million over five years, a salary of £5 million a year. From that point of view, it didn't take much working out. He would sign for Arsenal.

"We were offered £18 million from Manchester United and Leeds United a year before his contract ran out, but I told Martin Edwards and (Peter) Ridsdale at Leeds that they could offer 18p - it would make no difference. They couldn't buy him because he was waiting to be a free agent.

"Me, I kept quiet. What a wimp! I kept playing along with this cosy gentleman's agreement inside football that you kept quiet as a chairman and didn't criticise the manager or the players."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.