Willian has never regretted his decision to leave millions of pounds on the table when ripping up his Arsenal contract before joining Fulham a year later.
The ex-Chelsea star departed Stamford Bridge in 2020 after seven years at the club. Wanting to stay in the Premier League, the Brazilian managed to remain in London when signing a three-year deal with Arsenal as a free agent.
The 36-year-old was reportedly on £240,000 a week, but his stay with the Gunners lasted just a year after scoring only one goal in 37 games across all competitions. They ended up finishing a lowly eighth in the league and failed to qualify for any European competition for the first time since the 1994/95 season.
Despite having two years left on his mammoth contract that would have seen him bank £20.5million until 2023, Willian opted to ditch the club and rip up his deal, instead of requesting a pay-off.
The two-time Premier League winner later admitted that he asked Arsenal to mutually terminate his contract, which allowed him to head home to Brazil to sign for boyhood club Corinthians. He returned to the English top flight a year later as he joined Fulham, who he spent two seasons with and had only good things to say about.
Willian has opened up on why he wanted to leave Arsenal. (Photo by Visionhaus)
The Brazilian endured a nightmare tenure at Arsenal (Image: Photo by Visionhaus)
"When I left Arsenal everyone knows it was not good," he told The Telegraph earlier this year. "It was a difficult year for me, I decided to leave and, at that time, I still had two more years contract and I just said to them ‘listen, let’s break the contract. It has not worked the way we wanted.
"I will go somewhere else and I will continue to play football’. I turned the situation around and, now, three years later I am at this club, enjoying myself. It’s an amazing club, to be honest."
Giving up millions is certainly a brave stance to take and it's one the Olympiacos winger took despite people telling him that doing so would be "crazy". The winger admitted he was comfortable with his decision due to money not being a main priority in his life.
"People were saying to me ‘you are crazy," he said. "'You cannot give up this kind of money’. They were saying ‘any other player in your position would never do that. They would sit on the contract and collect the money’. Stuff like that.
"But I don’t think about money. I know money is important, for sure. But it’s not the first thing in my life. For me, God first. Then my family, then football. Then the other things. But I wasn’t happy so that’s why I decided to leave."
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