It is said that when you play for a club, you do not play for their rivals. Moving to a rival club is treated as fraud by the fans. There are a few players who dared to do such a thing. Let us look at such traitors.
Carlos Tevez
The Argentine forward played in the Premier League for Manchester United joined in 2007. He played an essential role in the team. When his contract expired, Tevez was not given a new contract by United, making him sign a contract with their local rivals Manchester City in 2009. In the season 2010-11, he won the league’s top scorer award with City and the in the following year; he won the Premier League. His jersey was thrown away by the United fans when he joined the rivals.
Gonzalo Higuain
Higuain joined Napoli in 2013 from Real Madrid. In his first season, Higuain won the Coppa Italia; he scored 36 goals in the league in the 2015-16 season. He won the top scorer award and equalled the record for scoring the most goals in an Italian top-flight season. This made Juventus go for Higuain, and they bought him for a record fee of €90 million in 2016. This move to the league rivals upset the fans and started abusing Higuain. In his lyrics, a local Napoli singer also mentioned that “I’ll enjoy myself once when Higuain dies”.
Robin Van Persie
Robin Van Persie was a loved figure for Arsenal fans. RVP scored many goals for them and also captained them. In the 2011-12 season, Manchester City won the league on a goal difference advantage above United. United bought RVP because of his goal-scoring ability in the 2012-13 season. Arsenal circulated a club statement that RVP is sold to United. This created havoc amongst the Arsenal fans, and they started to upload videos and images of RVP with abuses. Fans also burnt RVP’s jersey. In his first season with United, RVP won the Premier League and finished as the top scorer. RVP scored for United against Arsenal but did not celebrate the first time, though they booed him; when he scored for the second time in another game against them, he celebrated the goal wildly. While retiring, RVP wore a half United and half Arsenal jersey just to win back Arsenal fans, but the plan did not work and only attracted more abuses. He was titled Slithering Snake.
How would you feel if your star player joined the rival club?. Is it okay if the player comes back to the club and apologise?. Or rather, it is a professional choice of the player to move away from the club to do better?
