William Gallas, the French defender who played soccer from the late 1990s to the early 2000s was part of a really unsportsmanlike soccer transfer. William Gallas played most of his soccer in France and England. He played for Caen, Marseille, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham and Perth Glory.
Gallas, started his career at second divison team Caen. He played a crucial role in helping promote Caen to the first division. He was then transferred to Marseille where he played 4 seasons of soccer. After this, Ranieri, then manager of Chelsea bought Gallas for $6.2 million. Chelsea was where Gallas developed as a defender, he formed partnership with John Terry and Marcel Desailly and helped Chelsea keep a clean sheet for 16 straight games. Ranieri’s successor, Jose Murinho’s Chelsea won two back to back premier league titles, and a league title. But, in 2004 because of an injured player, Gallas had to play left back, a position he wasn’t very comfortable playing. His frustration kept on growing even more as he forced to play in that position.
Gallas’ contract was due to expire in May 2007, so Chelsea asked him to renew the contract on better terms. But, in May of 2006 Gallas had decided to make a move away from Chelsea to Serie A but Chelsea wasn’t going to let him go. So, after the international break, Gallas decided not to show up at Stamford Bridge(Chelsea’s Stadium). So, finally he was transferred away from Chelsea to Arsenal. This transfer wasn’t taken very well by Chelsea, where they released a statement claiming that Gallas threatened to score own goals at Chelsea, these rumors were discredited by Gallas.
Gallas, then helped Arsenal reach new heights, where he scored a lot of goals under Arsene Wenger. He helped Arsenal win many of the games he played and was given the responsibility of being the captain of the team in 2007. Under him, Arsenal transformed into a much better team with potentail to win the Champions League. But after 2 seasons at the club, Gallas suffered a series of injuries that hindered his performance. In 2010, he moved from Arsenal to Tottenham after requestinng unreasonable demands to Chelsea.
Playing for the Spurs(Tottenham) he helped them in their Champions League campaign where they reached the quarter finals only to be defeated by Real Madrid. He played a crucial first season for the Spurs playing 36 games. In the subsequent seasons, after sustaining more injuries, he managed to only play 17 games. Finally, in 2013 he was released from Tottenham.
Gallas then went on to play for Perth Glory for a year making 14 appearances before ending his career