Arsenal strapped for cash?
We would all love our manager to buy whoever is the hottest thing out there, yet the word is we can’t even afford to keep our players so how can we afford the big transfers the fans want?
There are so many things wrong the perception of the club finances, that it would take an eternity to debunk them. A perception perpetrated misleading headlines designed to sell papers, and the public consumption of those headlines without question. Let’s look at some of those myths.
Everyone is leaving Arsenal
This is a strong theme latched on to by the media, this is mainly due to the procrastination of Flamini’s decision and the tendency for Hleb’s agent (whoever that is) to mouth off to anyone who listens. Really guys does Flamini and Hleb count as everyone? But what about Lehman? Well I may be wrong but I was always under the impression that this would have been his final season whatever happened.
The infamous “wage structure”
Arsenal’s wage structure is another one of the often misunderstood things. It does not mean that Arsenal won’t pay what players are worth, on the contrary we do pay and do so very well. It’s just that we are not foolish enough to pay Michael Owen £100,000 a week or Flamini £70,000. However we did pay Henry £120,000 a week even Sol Campbell was on £80,000. Paying a player like Flamini £70,000 is just not on. Here’s a quote from D. Fizman on the wage structure
Well let’s just go back. You say ‘we don’t pay the wages that other teams do’. If you look at our total wage costs you will see they are virtually the same as Manchester United and substantially more than Liverpool. Of course we are all a little less than Chelsea who are in a world of their own. But compared to Man United and Liverpool we are good payers. We believe it is a team sport and we do well but we don’t want the disparity between the top and bottom earner being too big. It takes 11 people on the pitch to deliver.
Here’s the top 4 2007 wage figures
- Chelsea -£114m
- Manchester United - £85m
- Arsenal - 83m
- Liverpool - 69m
Lack of transfer funds
There can never be a lack of transfer funds, if Wenger feels that we need to spend £50m this summer and the board agrees then there will be funds made available. It’s not hard for a club in our situation to raise that kind of money.
Again would we even want to spend that much? We all know the answer to that. Liverpool did just that last season and where did it get them?
The bottom line
We are not a poor struggling club. We haven’t won a trophy in 3 years, but who hasn’t? I would love for us to win everything that’s the point of the game. Tell me though at what cost? Ask the other 17 loss making teams in the premier league. Yes that’s right 17 clubs out of 20 cannot post an operating profit. Manchester United, Tottenham, and Arsenal are the only profitable clubs in the league. I for one am happy with the financial direction of the Arsenal, ARE YOU?
