Background and career
Kevin Joseph Campbell (4 February 1970 – 15 June 2024) was an English professional footballer, sports television pundit and commentator. A striker, Campbell played in the Premier League for Arsenal, Nottingham Forest, Everton and West Bromwich Albion. He also played in the Turkish Süper Lig for Trabzonspor, and in the Football League for Arsenal, Leyton Orient, Leicester City and Cardiff City. Campbell was capped four times by England U21, scoring once, and received a call-up to the England B team in 1991, for whom he earned one cap.
Campbell was born in south London, the sixth of seven children in a family of Jamaican origin. He was raised by his single mother.
Campbell began his career as a trainee with Arsenal, joining the club on schoolboy forms in 1985. He was prolific for Arsenal's Academy, scoring 59 goals in one season. Campbell also won the FA Youth Cup of 1988 with Arsenal. He went on to make his first-team debut against Everton on 7 May 1988, although the club's forward positions at the time were usually taken by Paul Merson and Alan Smith. Campbell came to prominence during a loan spell at Leyton Orient in 1989 when he scored nine goals in 16 games. Campbell helped see the club to promotion during that season but did not play in their victorious playoff final against Wrexham as his loan spell had just ended. Orient manager Frank Clark wanted to make the move permanent but Arsenal refused to sell. At the start of the 1989–90 season, he was again loaned out, this time to Leicester City. The following season, he established himself in the Arsenal team, scoring eight times in ten matches during the run-in to the club's First Division title win. Despite Arsenal signing Ian Wright in September 1991, Campbell continued to feature in the team. He scored for Arsenal against Millwall and Derby County in Arsenal's victorious 1992–93 campaigns in the FA Cup and League Cup. In the 1993–94 season, he scored 19 goals, his best for the Gunners. He also featured in the victorious 1993–94 European Cup Winners' Cup campaign, scoring four goals, including one in the semi-final against Paris Saint-Germain. His form for the club waned in 1994–95, and the arrivals of forwards John Hartson and Chris Kiwomya saw his playing time reduced. Campbell played 224 times for Arsenal, scoring 60 goals.
In the summer of 1995, Campbell was sold to Nottingham Forest, for an initial fee of £2.5 million, where he spent three seasons. He was part of the team that was relegated in 1997, but his 23 goals the following season helped see the Reds win the Division One title in 1998.
Campbell controversially left Forest at the end of the 1997–98 season, against the will of their manager, Dave Bassett, to join Turkish side Trabzonspor for £2.5 million, a move which caused Forest teammate Pierre van Hooijdonk to go "on strike". His time in Trabzon saw him leave the club after seven months after a racist incident which involved club president Mehmet Ali Yılmaz calling him a "cannibal". Campbell and his teammates also had not been paid, something which he demanded they rectify. To show solidarity with Campbell, the two club captains, Ogün Temizkanoğlu and Abdullah Ercan, were at his side during a press conference in which he stated his reasons for leaving the club.
Everton, who were battling against relegation from the Premier League, signed Campbell on loan in March 1999. His impact on the side was immediate as he scored nine goals in his first eight games. These feats made him Everton's top goalscorer both at home and away from Goodison Park for that season. His six goals, which were scored in his first three games, earned him Everton's player of the month award for April, making him the first loanee to be bestowed with the title. Campbell's move to Everton was made permanent in the summer of 1999 for a fee of £3 million. In the 1999–2000 season, he scored Everton's winning goal in the Merseyside derby against Liverpool at Anfield, which was Everton's last win at Anfield before 2021, when Everton defeated Liverpool 2–0. He ended the season as the club's top scorer, with 12 goals scored altogether. Campbell was Everton's leading goalscorer in 2000–01, but scored just four times during the 2001–02 campaign and returned to the top in 2002–03. After that, injuries limited his appearances for the club and he left in 2005. Campbell is Everton's fifth-highest Premier League goalscorer, behind Romelu Lukaku, Duncan Ferguson, Tim Cahill and Dominic Calvert-Lewin. He was also Everton's first black captain.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
