So what are the possible solutions and outcomes? Here are three:
1. Arsenal carry on as they are, lose a few players and bring a few new faces in. They stay in or around the top four, financial fair play kicks in, they become more stable and as the stadium is paid off, they are able to offer amongst the highest wages on the planet, attracting quality players and future success.
2. The club invests money now and pay their established players the wages needed to keep them. They invest heavily in new players such as M’Vila, Hazard and Benzema and continue to be competitive domestically and on the continent.
3. Kroenke stubbornly refuses to step up and take some responsibility for his team. They don’t respond to the financial market and in doing so they drop away from the top of the league. They can’t compete financially and lose all their best players and so don’t stay competitive. The loss of additional revenues slows the mortgage repayment and it takes Arsenal many years before they are stable enough to challenge again.
There are many more permutations and possibilities. However, these are the big three. Carry on as is and succeed, increase short-term investment and succeed, or fail to respond to the market and in doing so set the club back as many as five to ten years.
What makes this such a horrible predicament is the choices that it presents.
Do Arsenal abandon their principles – the very principles that make it the envy of every responsibly run club in the world and throw cash at their problems? Or do they stick to their guns and hope?
This supporter would like to think that they can weather the storm and turn things around before it gets too bad.
Arsenal are a great club, and given their ethical approach to the financial side of the game, they should be applauded.
FIFA and UEFA should be doing more to make sure that clubs that stick to budget are rewarded on the field. The current suggestion is that UEFA will ban overspending clubs from playing Champions League football. We can’t expect the big clubs to take expulsion from European competitions laying down, they’ll just form a new ‘super’ league, fracturing the sport beyond repair. Financial penalties for irresponsible clubs are never going to work; I think points deductions for serious offenders is the only way it’s ever going to change the game.
Arsenal has some decisions to make. Do they stick or twist? Do they stand by their principles or move with the times? One thing is for sure, next season is going to be crucial for the Gunners. Even if they don’t win a trophy this season, they’ve still got to keep moving the club forward, because without momentum they might just go off the rails.
Like what you read? Then follow me on Twitter – http://twitter.com/TheLateTackle
Visit and Join our Facebook page, click HERE to do so.
Gunnersphere is currently looking for new writers to join the squad. Contact via twitter or at Gunnersphere@snack-media.com for further details.
Mike………..you are way off the mark. The EUFA Fairplay rules won’t ever be applied to the big Clubs and are simply a smokescreen to permit Platini to run for FIFA president in 2014.
clubs with Arsenal’s and Barca’s youth development pedigree will become the Southhampton’s of the rich clubs like Real,shitty,etc. with the full complicity of EUFA and FIFA.
While I wouldn’t advocate returning to the olden days when professional footballers were the slaves of their Clubs, the introduction of the Bosman Ruling in 1995 has, in many ways, been a curse on the game. Contracts now mean absolutely nothing. No sooner has a contract been signed than plans are made towards a better deal at renewal time. On a 4-year contract, you have the ludicrous situation where at the HALFWAY stage, negotiations begin to prevent a possible Bosman in TWO years’ time.
I would like to see a return to sanity where a contract means something and is honoured by both parties to its entirety.
Surely it must be possible to devise a means better than the crazy system we have at present.
walcott can go.. please go.. we don’t need him.
I agree, go Walcott.
The fair play is going to make no difference … it’s wide open for abuse.
A club can have any number of reserve players under 21, that kills the squad size limitation of 25.
A club will only be allowed to be self-sustaining under the fair play rules, right? What is to stop Mohammad’s brother from buying a any player from Man City for 150 Million every time they need to buy players. Mohammad can even give the cash to his brother to buy his own player.
The only thing which could probably help Arsenal in the long term is the Stadium being paid off. Usmanov could do it. Kronke could do it. Somebody needs to do it. Usmanov might have been the better option now I look at it differently. At least proper football is played in Russia, making Usmanov more football minded. Kroenke’s mind is full of mls, nfl, nba distractions. Besides, from day one our owner has said he’s only interested in making money. That he’s only interested in Arsenal as a business.
Kroenke had the oportunity to break his medocre patter in the states and he has so far flubbed it. He is not the ass that Hicks and Bennett were with Liverpool, but if he cannot understand what selling the brand means there is not a bright future, because clbs make as muc off the field as they do on it. I am hoping he ssteps up. Igt is critical to keep them all but Andrey…those that are bashing Theo are morons..the boy creates chances for others with his speed, and his vision. Keep this team intat Nasri is easily replaced, Fab not, but can be. Aim for more consistency for Ramsey and give some of the younger guys more time…
truth with Kroenke in charge we’re fucked.He and Gazidis would love to see the back of high earning players tread water on the pitch and just use the club for their commercial interests. Short-sightedness and mistrust made the board think an American was better than a Russian and i bet they are all now regretting but can’t do fuck all abt their stupidity.Well we will vote with our feet if better decisions are not made.