Forgotten Premier League flop who earned £7m without playing a game reveals he became COACH while frozen out of team

HARRY ARTER has revealed he became a COACH while he was frozen out of the Nottingham Forest squad.

The former Bournemouth midfielder earned £7million during his time out of the team.

Arter, 34, was signed by the club in 2020 but fell out of favour after just 13 appearances for the club.

His contract was automatically extended following Forest’s promotion to the Premier League in 2022.

It is claimed that he was earning £40,000-per-week during the time he was omitted by managers such as Steve Cooper and Nuno Espirito Santo.

Arter was finally released by the club earlier this year and is now playing for Precision FC in Dubai.

He has insisted that he was not prepared to walk away from his contract and still contributed by helping coaching sessions for the under-21s.

He told Sunday World: “I look back now with no negativity about my time at Forest.

“The playing side of things didn’t work out, I can’t deny that, but it was still great to be at the club at a time when they were on the up.

“At first, it’s hard to be with the Under-21s, but I ended up helping out on the coaching sessions with them and had a great relationship with the coach Warren Joyce.

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“We still speak on a weekly basis now and I made some great friends at the club.

“I also got on great with the manager Steve Cooper and he completely understood the position I was in with my contract.

“The whole situation was taken out of my hands and I feel like I handled it as well as possible.

“I was never fined for anything, I was never late for training, even though I knew I was never going to play.

“So I was disappointed with some of the stories that came out about me because some of them were not true. I’m sure they were released to put me under pressure to leave.

“One story claimed I turned down a pay-out to leave or terminate my contract, but that never happened.

“Another said I turned up for pre-season training overweight, but that was also wrong.

“There was another saying I told a player, Dan Gosling, not to join the club, but that never happened either.

“The simple reality was, they didn’t want me as a player and I wasn’t prepared to walk away from my contract.

“So we got into a position that no one could get out of.”

Arter has insisted that he still has plenty of moments from his career that he looks back on fondly.

He added: “The last few years at Forest have not been easy, but I don’t want that to be what I remember from my football career because there were so many fantastic moments.

“When I wasn’t playing at Forest, it made me appreciate all the opportunities I had been given in my career and how lucky I was to be at Bournemouth at the start of their rise towards the Premier League.

“At the end of it all, I played in the Premier League, I played international football for Ireland and I’ve had some amazing moments to look back on.

“That’s what I prefer to remember.”