Craig Bellamy (born July 13, 1979 in Cardiff) is a Welsh
international football player.
He currently plays for Celtic F.C. in the Scottish Premierleague,
on loan from Newcastle United, whom he joined in the summer of
2001 for £6,000,000. His previous clubs had been Norwich City
(1997-2000) and Coventry City (2000-2001).
His Welsh international record (as of April 2004) is 23 caps and
6 goals. He scored on his Newcastle debut, in their 4-0 defeat
of Belgian side Lokeren. Probably his most important moment for
Newcastle United was scoring 2 goals (including the winner) in
the 3-2 win over Feyenoord which took them through to the second
group stage. Unfortunately in the next match (a 4-1 defeat to
Inter Milan) he was sent off for kicking out at an Inter
defender, which resulted in a 3-match ban. His aggression seems
to be one of his bad points, in March 2003 he was alleged to
have racially attacked someone at a nightclub in Cardiff.
More recently, he had a very public faling-out with Newcastle
manager Graeme Souness. On 23 January 2005, Bellamy was omitted
from the team for a Premiership match with Arsenal. Before the
match, Souness said that Bellamy had a hamstring problem, but
contradicted himself in a post-match interview, claiming that
Bellamy was benched for being unprepared to play as a right-side
midfielder. Minutes later, Bellamy gave an interview of his own
saying that he was prepared to play in any position. He admitted
that he had threatened to fake injury ahead of the Arsenal
match, and in a later interview accused Souness of lying about
him. Two days after the match, the club fined Bellamy two weeks'
wages (about £80,000), and he was loaned to Celtic F.C. for the
remainder of the season after he rejected a move to Birmingham
City. |
