Campbell turns his back on Sven & Notts County

The unlikely alliance between former England and Arsenal star Sol Campbell and Division Three club Notts County ended yesterday when the 35-year-old centre back walked away from his £40,000-a-week, four-year deal with the club, citing unhappiness at the facilities at Meadow Lane and the level of skill of his team-mates.

The player, who was a free agent when he joined the club on August 26 having left Premier League strugglers Portsmouth in the summer, is turning his back on a considerable sum of £10m that he would have earned over the period of his contract, and finds himself unable to join another club until the January transfer window.

Bearing in mind that his debut for County last Saturday against Morecambe saw the defender look well short of match fitness during the 2-1 away defeat, and that he won't be able to kick a ball in anger for the next three months, it would appear that Campbell's illustrious career is drawing to a close in a rather embarrassing fashion.

The player was persuaded to join the club, who participate at the lowest rung of the professional ladder, by his former national manager, Sven Goran-Eriksson, who became the director of football at County, the oldest professional football league club in the world, in July.

Campbell raised a few eyebrows when he turned down approaches from clubs such as Newcastle to take on a role at Meadow Lane that would have eventually mutated into a coaching job. His former Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp - now boss at Spurs - said at the time that he would have re-signed the player, and admitted to having recommended Campbell to Martin O'Neill at Aston Villa.

The County hierarchy are upset at such a high-profile departure, aware that it could unsettle Goran-Eriksson too. Executive chairman Peter Trembling said the club were "disappointed Sol felt he could not adjust to the long-term long-term nature of the project," adding "perhaps things are not happening as quickly as he thought they might but this is a five-year project, not a five-week project. We can't just become a Premier League club overnight. Sol has decided that this is not where he wants to be now." ·