The learning curve will be very steep no matter how talented they are, and only winners, can pass on the experience of what it means to get over the finish line when the nerves are jangling. The likes of Cahill and Alvarez may change the approach, but are they the world class infusion that we need to overcome the likes of Manchester United, Barcelona and Real Madrid?
So Self sustainability, though marvellous as an ethos to be proud of, clearly has it’s downside. Which is simply, unless we can bring in an extra £20 million each season from other activities, we are in effect committed to being a selling club until the stadium loan is paid off. Yep! Arsenal Football Club is effectively a nursery or feeder club for the likes of Barcelona or Manchester City, or who so ever will be prepared to pay top dollar for our players so that we can invest in cheaper staff with these inflated returns.
We will groom our young talented players and bring the best out of them, only then having to sell these players in order to cope with player wage inflation. The logic of this means whether we like it or not, the likes Jack Wilshere WILL be sold in the future. Mark my words. It happened with Thierry Henry, Paddy Vieira and now Cesc Fabregas. The death knell will be the allocation of the captains armband to the lad, which will mean that he has less than four seasons left at the club…
I don’t recall that this was the true intention of the “Living within our means” mantra when it was conceived. It was to get us through the potential financial turmoil of coping with a new stadium project. To that end it has indeed succeeded. But this fledgling infant has grown into a Frankenstein and now this monster has become a real threat to us. Yet it’s creators hang on to the moral high ground. “This is a way of guaranteeing being compliant with the UEFA Fair play rules” they croon proudly.
Hoping to persuade us to cling onto the hope that the likes of Barcelona Real Madrid and Chelsea will be banned from the Champions league for having massive deficits. But we all know that this will never happen. The sponsors would not stand for it. So this policy is for the purists. I would also add that what is the point of proclaiming our leadership in these areas if the current trend of footballing results mean that we will drop out of the Champions League placings in the future?
So how do we change? I really think that Ivan Gazidis has got it wrong by rejecting my proposal of getting the two Billionaires to pay off the Stadium debts. In very much the same way that UEFA would never kick Chelsea out of the Champions League, neither would they remove Arsenal for injecting funds into the club via a loophole. I still see the merits of the self sustaining model, but not at the expense of our success.
The medicine must not kill the patient! In the absence of a solution it also means that strict adherence to this policy will mean that NO big names will EVER be bound for Arsenal. The only big names will be those that we produce and if they become big names whilst playing for us, then as sure as eggs are eggs the transfer exit door will be the next destination for these names. Is this what we really want? Oh my God…Where has our Arsenal gone?
Article courtesy of FTK at the excellent Arsenal Insider
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