R&W hypocrisy should keep board on their toes
July 6, 2012
Well this is nice.
In the space of 24 hours we’ve gone from having one of the most fruitful and productive summers in recent memory to yet again losing our best player, fans turning on each other and the start of what could be a very public and unpleasant war of words between our two major shareholders.
Oh, and it’s raining again this morning. “It’s pathetic fallacy” screams my inner sixth former in a desperate bid to impress.
So yesterday Alisher Usmanov and the other one at Red and White Holdings took the opportunity to kick the club when it was down following Robin’s revelations the previous evening and made public a four page letter addressed to the Arsenal board outlining its concerns regarding the way the club is being run.
Regardless of the content of the letter, all you really need to know about its intent is contained in that line above. They made the letter public. They wrote a missive addressed to: ‘The Board of Directors of Arsenal Holdings Plc: Peter Hill-Wood, Ivan Gazidis, Ken Friar, Sir Chips Keswick, Lord Harris of Peckham, Stanley Kroenke’ and released it to the Associated Press with the clear intention of taking advantage of the Robin fallout and garnering public support.
That’s fine I suppose. We’ve all written private letters to friends expressing concern over their well being and then instead of just sending them released them to the Associated Press. Sometimes you just can’t find a stamp. But it’s a little rich when the letter kicks off with complaints about how the Arsenal board have made:
…some very deliberate and public comments by Ivan Gazidis which were intended to leave the Club’s supporters with an impression that Red & White is in some bitter stand-off with the Board over its desire for a Board seat and that our involvement on the Club’s Board might cause conflict and “destabilize” the Club
The board speak very little about Red and White if they can avoid it. I get the impression they’d rather not speak about them at all. The reference that Gazidis made to them in his Q&A with AST a few weeks ago was in response to a direct question. To accuse them of trying to score points with the public in a letter which you’ve leaked to the public seems hypocritical to say the least.
The second major complaint made in the letter refers to a request received by OJSC Megafon, the Russian mobile phone conglomerate 50% owned by Usmanov from Arsenal requesting a meeting to discuss a sponsorship deal. The intimation is that Gazidis has shown a lack of professionalism in not realising who the major shareholder of the company was but this is far from certain. With Mr Usmanov’s constant references to his desire to do right by the club, perhaps Ivan felt that Megafon might be interested in offering us a Mega deal. And no doubt if you don’t want UEFA to investigate you for attempting to sidestep the FFP regulations when it comes to your massive new sponsorship deal the professional way to approach it would be to send a letter to the targeted company rather than drop a call to your 30% shareholder asking for a cash injection.
Usmanov continues to berate the board for protecting their own investment over the needs of the club itself. He criticises them for failing to look into a rights issue which would effectively mean a dilution of the value of Stan Kroenke’s shareholding unless he was prepared to sink a load of money into the club. If his major concern is simply providing the club with additional funds why not stop bleating on about the unprofessional nature of the Megafon approach and give it the nod. Let’s have some of that cash of yours.
The letter does raise some valid points, chiefly the question of our current owner’s silence over key issues including the current status of the loan which he received in order to purchase the club last year. Despite reassurances to the contrary fans have a right to concerns that at some stage that debt will be shifted on to the club as the Glazers have done at Manchester United. And of course the letter will provoke a fair amount of support from sections of the Arsenal fans which is exactly what it’s designed to do. But equally I think many fans will resent having the club’s name dragged so publically through the dirt, particularly at a time when we need to be concentrating on righting the ship. It’s interesting that two public statements in two days intended to garner support will in the main have the opposite effect.
Still – as ever there are lessons for the Arsenal board. While RVP and R&W have had their say the club are still notoriously quiet. We may prefer not to air our dirty laundry in public but we could still learn a few lessons in public relations. The fanbase is getting antsy and understandably so. We want some reassurance. We don’t want to be the fans paying the most for their ticket prices to see the only top club that keeps selling its best players year after year.
Surely the best riposte to Usmanov’s gloomy claims of our inability to compete under the current model would be to go out and sign the quality replacements that we crave. And in that respect maybe at least the letter is not an altogether bad thing. If it can keep the club on its toes and remind them that selling our best players and failing to adequately replace them is not acceptable then hopefully they’ll work all the harder to put that right. I’ve always been an advocate of the self-sustaining model but I’d really like to see the board go out this year and prove that it’s the right way forward.
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20 Responses to “R&W hypocrisy should keep board on their toes”
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It’s about time someone had a go at the Board and in particular PHW. As far as I’m concerned all the board are interested in is lining their own pockets at the expense of a once great club that is being run more as a selling club. Kroenke won’t put his hand in his pocket to boost our coffers so we have to sell our best players at a much reduced price and Wenger is also more interested in finance than buying players for the right positions, instead he would prefer to buy cheap options that’s why we will never win another trophy under the present regime. We need a strong manager who will insist on funds and go out and buy this player or that player no matter what the cost, clear out all the dead wood that is limiting our budget and try to win games at all costs and not go out like a damp squib and then turn round and say a draw is a good result. Absolute “b——s”.
Your analyis has afew unfacied outburst. It is not R&W throwing dirt at Arsenal Board. Please try and analyse RVP short massage, it tells you the Board has alot to either do or undo.
I would love to know how many of these anti-Arsenal management e-mails are written by organs of Usmanov (what a repulsive image that is!). When Judith Le’Strange mentions “once great club,” is she (?) talking about Arsenal in the 1940s? 1950s? 1960s? 1970s when we won the double in 1971 and then the FA Cup in 1979? 1980s when we won the league in 1989? Or is she talking about the Arsenal of Arsene Wenger and PHW which won three titles and four FA Cups?
Usmanov is quite right to publish his letter. It’s all he can do in the face of the board refusing to open dialogue with a 30% shareholder billionaire. How can that possibly be in the best interests of the club? Looks more to me like the club is being secretive and trying to line its own pockets.
It’s all about money and I am sick and tired of people slagging off Wenger.
He doesn’t generate the money for transfers, the board does and if all they give him is 10 million to spend on a player he can’t buy a player worth 11 million.
Wenger doeasn’t deal with salaries and the structure, the board does, so why point the finger at the manager, you need to look upstairs for that.
In truth Arsenal shouldn’t be in the CL with the squad we have because it just isn’t good enough but every year we get in so what does that tell you about the manager.
This issue with RVP will either scare the board in to investing more and keep R&W holdings at bay or buckle to the demands of Usmanov and sell him more shares and let him put his money in as promised.
As for RVP, I say sell him because loyalty is a two way street and the club has been loyal to him through thick and thin but now he is to good for the club, well no player is bigger the Arsenal!
The truth really hurts…….
Usmanov releasing this letter publicly demonstrates that he clearly is not the right person to be involved with AFC.
For his own selfish reasons he has put the club in a bad light whilst it was already down.
No one with the interests of AFC at heart would do that publicly.
If you delve a bit deeper you might also think it is a tad coincidental that RVP’s statement was quite similar, maybe written by the same person. Oh and isn’t Darren Dein RVP’s agent and David Dein a senior figure at Red and White!
#Usmanovout
this east euro guy comes with loads of money does anyone wonder where from, is he checkable why does he want arsenal a lot of fans would hand over the club to anyone
The Guardian article from 2007 is very illuminating on R & W’s “knight in shining armour”. Liked the way your article highlights what is going on behind the scenes. Pity so many fans are allowing themselves to be manipulated by R & W. Having said that, their gut feeling is right – without FFP, a sugar daddy is the only option to compete. For me the ball is in Uefa’s court. Unless they start enforcing FFP the EPL will turn into a 2 horse race leaving even MUFC struggling. Alongside MUFC we also have the fate of Rangers as a warning concerning knights in shining armour who are not all they appear to be. Like you say, the jury is still out on SK.
Mate you are a little naive to say the least.
To state that it’s not certain that gazidis knew about megafons ownership is ridiculous. Do you think arsenal approach possible sponsors without conducting due diligence?
Suppose megafon was owned by a Colombian drug cartel?
Of course they knew who owned it.
They intentionally ignored it. U could take that as a sign of disrespect and that’s what usmanov is implying. It’s ridiculous way of doing business for the arsenal board in what be a lucrative deal.
Actually if arsenal signed a sponsorship deal with megafon for 10 billion. Would that not give us huge spending power and not breach ffp??? Not sure but curious.
And of course we’d balance the books…
@ukpunisher – I wasn’t suggesting that Ivan Gazidis didn’t know who owned Megafon, quite the opposite.
Cant understand why wenger gets no blame in this remember he is the one who chooses the players he wants in the team but when they leave he chooses not to replace them wenger does not get loyalty means nothing to the modern player. Wenger is as much at fault as the board are for allowing this to happen since vieira left now its a regular thing lets not forget as well wenger is a very powerful man at the club and the board are to scared to push him incase he leaves he makes the club alot of money so they dont question him.
I want as much as everyone else for arsenal to be successful but this self sustained model would have worked years ago but because of the super rich sugar daddy clubs and you know which ones i talking about they have ruined it for they live off you own means clubs so as good as FFP sounds to some clubs it not going to help us in the long run we have to move with the times.
#Stanout
With so many people having problems with reading comprehension, it’s nice to find someone who can actually talk sense.
Usmanov is a dirty fellow, and from what I can gather, the point of not including him in the Board is precisely not to have to deal with a dirty fellow. Is that good or bad? I really can’t say. I’d feel much comfortable if a 30% owner actually had a say in the club’s dealings – otherwise what do those shares mean?
But that’s a different issue altogether. It’s clear that, as you wrote, both those recent statements are actually aimed at subverting the order at Arsenal. Why does RVP slag the management? Perhaps because he wants the public to believe it’s not about the money, while also suggesting he might want to move. Why do R&W slag the management? Perhaps in order to exert media pressure on the club to act in a specific way. The problem is, in both cases the main result is the club being slagged.
Such letters should only be published when a dialogue is impossible – so I understand their going public if they really can’t push through from within. However, it’s a different issue to complain about unjust exclusion from the board, and another to question the club’s dealings. You rightly highlight the Megafon issue, it’s a fantastic example of how you can twist and turn a story to your liking so long as the people don’t know too much about it. I guess we shouldn’t expect the putative deal to amount to much, really, unless Kroenke and Usmanov strike some kind of a deal with respect to Arsenal – I don’t think the Uzbek likes the idea of “sugardaddying” Arsenal from the back seat, without being able to steer it directly. This might be also why Gazidis didn’t do too much about the offer.
Where Usmanov is, sadly, right, is with the funds needed for Arsenal to go big. FFP? even if it’s introduced, UEFA will definitely make the first year or two a probationary period. It might take FFP some 4-5 years to start working, and even then, it’s hard to predict its actual effects.
There’s also the other problem – the club’s long-term strategy. If memory serves me well, we still have a good couple of years until the club repays its Emirates debt, and if Kroenke is a typical American billionaire, we can add to this the years it will take for it to repay the debts accrued when he bought Arsenal. And this is the sad news – it means we shouldn’t expect the club to break any transfer records, or to let Wenger freely choose his players, regardless of the price, until about the next decade. Again, whether it’s good or bad is anybody’s guess.
TMH, it’s very rare that I disagree with you but I’m not sure about this one..
It’s true that the public airing of these grievances leaves a sour taste, nobody wants to see the Arsenal name tarnished, but how else would they be heard? By your own admission our 30% shareholder has effectively been frozen out, despite voting in favour of every board decision since they have had the option. While there doesn’t seem much doubt that R+W are serving their own self interest, their criticisms of the board strike a chord with the majority of fan disgruntlement. Usmanov is in a more informed position than us and we can’t ignore criticisms of commercial dealings when he’s backing it up with evidence like the Megafon thing. Sure he’s aware of fan sentiment re our terrible commercial deals, but to not wish to speak of R+W or acknowledge Usmanov, then appeal to a part of his portfolio does seem a little strange.
This may well be piggybacking, but the issues remain. There is something stagnant in the club’s current model. We’ve lost the progressive edge we forged a decade ago. We are over-charged as fans and have rewarded mediocrity, damaging our ability to maintain stars. Wenger’s fatherly treatment of players and expectations of loyalty have continually been contradicted.
@Terry, I’m pretty sure according to IG at the AST meeting, that AW controls a combined wage and transfer budget. It was definitely him that pushed through a player parity wage structure… He seems to want a La Masia ethos without the tradition or heritage.
I can’t believe Arsenal are getting stick for running their club In a responsible manner, which Include’s paying their employee’s the market rate. £200,000- £250,000 per week Is not market rate, It’s the rate only a few club’s can afford (Illegally).
It’s not like every club Is subsidized by whole government ala Man City or a guy who has raped his homeland (Russia) of It’s natural resources and has denied his people what RIGHTFULLY belong’s to them, Instead he Is pumping money that belong’s to the Russian people Into a mid table club which was more known for It’s hooliganism than It’s ‘Great Trophy Laden History’
Let me start off first and foremost by saying that I follow many, many blogs about our beloved Arsenal FC and some of them are fantastic reading.
This one however, may just be the most superb piece of writing I have come across since I began. Bravo.
Genuinely, I loved it.
So I have tried to make this as unbiased a reply as possible but ofcourse being a self-admitted, die hard, born and bred Arsenal fan for 30 years who loses his voice through song at every game I attend… I’m naturally going to sway a little bit on that!
Lastly, I apologise for just how long this reply became!
Now, There are many, many points to address regarding the release of this letter and it seems that the most volatile one ofcourse being that is has been made public.
So I’d like to address that first as clearly it has driven an even larger wedge in opinion between those who are pro-RWH and those who are anti-RWH.
First and foremost I would hope all true and educated Arsenal fans agree that the events of the past couple of days, including this publicated letter, are extremely saddening and immensely unfortunate to put it mildly.
However, there is a certain air of fickle hypocrisy surrounding the animosity about RWH making their stance public.
One of the biggest issues that the majority of Arsenal fans (myself included) have with the board is the truly uninspiring lack of transparency towards the clubs’ fans with regard to the direction and ambition of the club.
Put plain and simply, we are all singing the same song and the chorus is ‘What is the truth? What is really going on upstairs? Where is the money? Who’s fault is it really?’, and the catchiest line of all, ‘Is Wenger not spending or are the board penny pinching?’.
This isn’t to say we expect complete details on such things as who we are scouting, who is on our target list or publications of accounting records etc etc.
That would ofcourse be ridiculous.
But, If you’ve followed the club closely for even the past five years alone you’ll know that the reality is, we’ll never be told the answers to the real questions rightly being asked, atleast not without an air of vagueness and certainly not by PHW or Gazidis.
We take huge issue with this. We have a right to know where our club is headed and true explanations as to why our 7 seasons past have produced nothing but Champions League places (more recently only just) and the departure of our true marquee players. Particularly as our season tickets have increased at a truly offensive rate and insultingly, we are finding ourselves reading about our hugely financial successes in the real estate world rather than our plans for the new season, news which is consistently splattered all over our official website in practically gloating cries of, ‘Look at how good our business brains are!’
Business, Business, Business. Huge sums of money are basically being waved in our faces and still, our best players leave.
Now, RWH will clearly win over many fans for this new attack on the board and it may well have been calculated to do just exactly that but I feel this may be a bit of an old fashioned and, perhaps, knee-jerk reaction.
To demand answers and then lambast people in a position of power to do just that is quite perculiar. The criticism of this may well lie in the fact that they have made it public for all to read but that brings us exactly to the crux of the matter. RWH and in particular, Ulisher Usmanov are demanding answers and thus, intentionally or not, are now representing the majority of the fans’ exact same opinions and simultaneously are showing us exactly what they are doing. They are asking the questions, demanding the answers.
Usmanov in particular is challenging the board and in our Red and White (and now navy-striped) world a directoral revolution is quite clearly becoming more evident as something very much needed.
For changes to be made, drastic changes, extreme measures sometimes, however unfortunate they may be, must happen.
This is not me rallying for a RWH takeover, neither is it a defence of The Board of Directors but what is clear from all the comment-flooded blogs and conversations I’ve had with many different Arsenal fans is that we would all love the opportunity to vent our issues at the board and actually have them read and received.
Here we have someone doing exactly that and letting us know he is fighting our corner for us. Again, that may well be a phoney plot for fan backing but regardless of whether Usmanovs company have our best interests at heart or not, he’s still put the sword to the board.
Ultimately, they are the ones responsible for the consistent weakening of the clubs on-field competitiveness. The buck truly stops with them.
Yes, it publicly puts the club in a bad light and may be embarrassing but step back for a moment.
Along with SEVEN trophyless seasons and Man City turning into Arsenal 2.0 we now have RVP’s decision to leave, all of which has had us subjected to ridicule nationwide for many years and many agree that, ultimately, the responsibility for the failure to consistently keep our most prized players falls firmly at the feet of Ivan Gazidis and the rest of the men in suits.
Should we really feel, STILL, that this continuing embrassment of events over these barren years should be kept behind closed doors, all just to stop the nation mocking us? It’s far too late for that I think.
Let’s face facts. Has all this misery of being weakened year after year, reading back page after page of another world star leaving Arsenal helped us or changed things by having the reasons kept away from us?
There really is only one obvious answer to that isn’t there?
On top of this, to keep such serious issues behind closed doors as so to not bring any negativity to the club, in this instance atleast, is quite frankly just a form of coddling and burying heads in the sand and only serves to increase the distrust between us fans and the board. It doesn’t help either to quell the mass critics and ridicule from the media and other clubs’ fans when there is no answer we can provide them with to why this has been our practice for so long. Why we now seem to be a selling club in everyone’s eyes.
THAT reputation is far more damaging to our success and our future than any publicly aired war between the men upstairs.
How is it that Daniel Levy has been able to keep Modric and Bale so firmly tied down for so long? Ok, it looks like this year Modric MAY be leaving but last season Levy came out and said ‘No way’ ‘Nobody can have him, end of story’.
Rooney was all but out of the Old Trafford doors but there he still remains signed to a nee long term deal. Overrated or not, he is one of their marquee players.
Why has Gerrard never sought grander or richer pastures? Chelsea failed to prise him from a mid table team as did Inter Milan.
Benzema, a player who warmed the bench for almost an entire season, still remains at the club and is still happy. Now he is a mainstay at Madrid.
Micheal Ballack handed in a transfer request during his prime, he ended up staying at Bayern.
Carlos Tevez, arguably the most belligerent and disruptive mercenary in footballing history wanted out of City. He ended up staying and collected a Premier League medal.
Even the smaller clubs can boast the same feats that we so miserably fail in. Graham Holt, Norwich FC’s talisman striker who had a fantastic first season in the top flight (something Wenger will know well) said he was adamant he was off and could easily have attracted the likes of Everton, Newcastle and even Spurs…..He stayed.
The list is quite vast when looking for other examples.
Why is it they can hold on to their stars yet we can’t?
These questions MUST be answered and it seems this board are so ignorant to the damage being caused that shock treatment now seems the only way of waking them up…. Treatment like a public letter of agressive inquiry is a good start.
Something they can hide and bury under the rug with far less ease.
I can never forgive Van Persie for his betrayal but we must realise that despite Wengers best efforts with some very promising signings, it was too little, too late. I do not believe Wengee is responsible.
He broke HIS philosophy and transfer habits .to do everything he can to keep our once favourite Dutchman.
Had the board come to a decision that things must change after losing Nasri and Fabregas and worked with Wenger to seriously put a stop to this kind of professional suicide happening again, there’d certainly be more faith and respect held for them.
Let’s not forget also, since the arrival of Stan Korenke nothing has changed. Infact in some respect, we’ve gone backwards.
All of our real estate deals have been finalised, the stadium is 70% paid off and yet very little in the way of cash injection has taken place. No time frame has recently been given to us on when we can start to reap the benefits of their BUSINESS model and in fact, the last statement with regard to this model had us believing that from 2009 onwards we would see huge rewards on the pitch. We haven’t .
Under the ruthless and calculated Gazidis, we lost Wengers most important ally and in many ways, ours too. David Dein. The man responsible for bringing us our French genius.
A man who was legendary for truly loving the club and for keeping Wenger focussed. He too would challenge the board and Wenger in keeping AFC at the very pinnacle of football, domestically and globally.
This man, who was a huge influence on signings such as Viera, Pires and Henry, is a very close friend and adviser to Usmanov and a partner in RWH.
I highly doubt that, despite the bad blood between Gazidis and himself, David Dein would risk any lasting permanent damages to the club he devoted his life to by giving Usmanov ill advice on how to react to the sale of RVP…… and you can bet your life that Usmanov sought his advice before releasing the letter to the public.
Nobody can deny just how pivotal David Dein was to our dominant, multiple title winning and invincibles era and we all know how much of a trusted advisor and friend of Wenger he was.
It’s also no coincidence that our fall from grace these past seven years began very early on into the time that David Dein was so ruthlessly booted out of the club.
He fully backs Usmanov’s vision and regardless of the dispute between Gazidis and Dein over the planned move to the Emirates (which it turned out Dein did actually back after all, despite Gazidis telling us otherwise) David Dein has always put the success of the club on the pitch first.
So why is there so much negativity and fear towards Usmanov? A man who quite clearly and undeniably has more passion than ‘Silent Stan’ and far less interest in just running a business that he can add to his portfolio of an ever expanding business empire.
But then ofcourse came along our Mr Kroenke, who lest we forget, began his approach as someone the board were, quite publicly, wary of. Now this may seem perfectly rational ofcourse but the reality is that they were not worried about the American entrepreneurs potential to pile us up in debt and ruin any chance of trophies.
No, they were infact worried about quite the opposite. That he would in fact shake things up, inject vast sums of money onto the pitch and less in the AFC business accounts, in turn, ruining all of the Boards hard work in setting up a business model ‘golden goose’ for them all to harvest.
You may not agree and you are perfectly within your right to do so but then why the eventual change of heart? Why then the sudden rush to sell mass amounts of shares to an outsider who knew nothing of football?
Oh but wait, he knows about sports BUSINESS, and so we come full circle again. Business, business, business.
This was not, however, the main reason they suddenly went from, ‘we don’t like outsiders’ to ‘Welcome Mr Kroenke!’
Embracing his takeover was the only way to stop Usmanov and ultimately, bringing back David Dein (something we should remind ourselves that was alos made very public)
If that were to of happened, PHW, Gazidis and the rest of them believed their days would be numbered.
If we relate this back to the controversial issue at hand, it seems quite obvious that RWH have clearly had as much as they can take. As have most of us.
I personally have always been proud of our traditions and our self-sustaining policies, it has separated us from the majority of the big teams in Europe and given us a sense of morality and maturity in a money-driven universe that football has now sadly evolved into.
More saddening though is the harsh reality that, regardless of the FFP, this universe is going to be around for quite a long time. Just look at the NFL if you need further proof.
I’m not saying I want to see RWH pump 700 million into the club for us to then but any big name we can think of for 60million a go and 300k wages.
But we must prioritise building a title winning team over all other matters. That is first and foremost as a FOOTBALL CLUB. I would be more than happy to see those changes made under the current board. I would love nothing more than for them to say, ‘We need to help Wenger more, we owe him and the fans, this isn’t enough’.
Sadly, I don’t see that ever occurring, do you?
Tradition and pride of moral practice is a wonderful thing and something to be applauded, but sadly, this cannot come at the expense of the very essence it is based around.
Sporting glory. Arsenal FC have now come to a crossroads where the reality is, the policy is failing.
When tradition comes at the expense of self sabotage and competitive suicide you must change. It is a sorry situation yes but it must be accepted.
If not, you accept nothing more than ignorant pride and mediocrity.
it gives me great pains to see a section of fans supporting the board. do you know the amount of shame we fans have faced over these barren years? how much money we’ve lost? it is very clear that our present model is not working. lets call a spade a spade and face reality. even if usmanov’s ambitions are questionable and termed selfish by some fans, isn’t it better than that of kronke and his crew who care only about their pockets. how many times does he visit the emirates? how many arsenal games has he watched since he took over? what does a yank businessman know about football? how did we even allow am man who borrowed money to buy his large portion of shares to be at the helm of affairs? he’ll simply transfer this debt to the club soon. we are declining every day and all we all say is keep the faith. its time we review a lot of things at our beloved club.personally i’ll rather eat a bad food than to eat a worser one. Usmanov is better any day any time
One comment on this is if I was a shareholder and from a business and practial point of view I would want to know who is responsible for contract renewal and how can they get it so wrong.
No player should never be let run to twelve months remaning on their contracts…. people are human and heads will be turned. The chance of being a free agent and demanding huge wages elsewhere starts creeping into the brain.
Our top player and captain plus a young winger that we have invested heavily in are now in a position were they have the power.
We have see Flamini contract been let run down and he left on a free same… with Wiltord???? Yet we offer Denilson a 5 year contract???
If a player wants to leave fine it happens but at the very least we should be able to get the best possible pruce so we can reinvest and replace the outgoing personnel.
Club policy at 24m left everyone contract is reviewed if its not working sell, if they are playing in the 1st team extend for 1-2 years or even add in a 1 year opt. If the wont extend sell but no should be allow go into the last year of their contract and left on a free….. its complete horseshit and someone have fucked up to many times imo.
Football is a business make no mistake about that.
I’m not so sure the club only offers contract renewals to mediocre players. I’m actually almost 100% sure they offer them to all players Wenger wants to keep. Some sign joyfully on the sly, others say “let’s wait until the season’s over” and then again and again… RVP probably was looking forward to running his contract until the last year because he managed to get some airplay only recently – time was on his side. Two years ago, he would be hard pressed to find an employer likely to double his Arsenal wages.
Contracts are also subject to negotiations, it’s not like the club can force anyone into signing deals they don’t want to sign. It’s a free country. Or isn’t it?