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A balanced view on a club with a healthy balance sheet

23.02.12

Well here we are again, in the January window, after two poor performances away from home, preceded - I admit - by several poor games in the run-up to Xmas/New Year, Arsenal fans arguing with each other, some real nutters on Twitter threatening our own players and, of course, demands for AW to go, the Board to spend big and again statements regarding the Directors pocketing large sums…..

I am not going to try to explain away some disappointing results or analyse tactics, injuries or the squad-quality. It still seems to me that people are missing some key issues in the whole "Arsène in/Arsène out" and the "Arsenal FC not PLC" debate, and that these points have to be taken into consideration:

1. Football has always been about money - from the very start of professional football, the best players have been bought and sold by clubs seeking success. Early on, the players’ wages were capped, and there was no freedom of contract. Now they can move when, and demand what, they want and the best football assets tend to fetch the best prices. Sometimes bargains emerge, but rarely can you get real proven quality at a bargain price. The book "Winners and Losers", by Szymanski and Kuypers, researched the financial impact on football and showed a direct correlation between performance in the league and wages spent, with few exceptions. So, to all those who say financial performance off the pitch does not matter - you are factually incorrect: it does. On the pitch performance is directly linked to off-pitch success - FACT. That leads us on to the reason why we moved from Highbury and built the Emirates…….

Source: Online Gooner