Inter keen on Sagna + Park’s Arsenal career officially a write off
October 10, 2012
Ding Ding!! All aboard the international break bus. If you care to take a look out of your left hand window you’ll see that…absolutely nothing is going on! Because it’s an international break. And nobody cares.
Which is presumably why I’ve been reduced to reading stories about how, to everyone’s evident horror, Lukas Podolski has been using the bus to get around North London. Woopety woop. I mean I’m not saying it wouldn’t feel like a bit of a coup to look up from my copy of the Metro and see the hammer footed German excitedly humming ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ right next to me, but just reading about it is hardly getting my juices flowing.
Apparently he doesn’t find it unusual to be using the bus either as… it saves him from having to find a parking space. Aargh! He could at least have made a crack about wanting to make sure every mid-table team weren’t able to park the thing across their goalmouth next time they visit the Emirates.
A touch more interesting is this story emanating from the Arsenal Supporters Trust that the club have taken a £5.5 million hit in their accounts this year by completely writing off the value of Park Chu-Young. The move makes apparent financial sense as by swallowing the hit this year when we’ve made £30m plus profit anyway will mean we don’t have to factor Park’s wages over the next three seasons which would help us should we struggle to meet the FFP requirements in any way.
Still, it essentially meant that we had to prove to the taxman that currently Park has no value whatsoever, which seems like another particularly harsh body blow for the South Korean who must be questioning why he ever left Monaco in the first place. There’s a suggestion that this accountancy tactic might explain the manager’s reluctance to use the player last season – the best way to prove that he had no value was to never use him – and I suppose that explanation is as good as any other that’s been put forward for this mysterious situation (not counting these of course), but frankly it seems like a bizarre way to go about running a football team and treating a player. Knowing the amount of loyalty and care Arsene Wenger shows towards all of his players, even those who have under performed consistently or flat out betrayed him, I’m not convinced that this could be something that he would sanction.
The mystery continues.
Bacary Sagna sounded delighted to have made his comeback for the U-21s on Monday night but he still took time out to acknowledge the contribution of young Carl Jenkinson while he’s been away:
He has been really good, and has learned a lot. He is a bit more confident with the ball, and is very solid as a defender.
He brings a lot to the team, and I am very happy for him because he is a hard worker, a very good guy and is going to be one of the best.
He stopped short of addressing whether or not he thought Jenks’ form might make his own return to the first team anything less than a formality but it surely must have crossed his mind so it was particularly interesting to read that Italy’s Corriere Dello Sport have this morning linked Sagna with a move to Inter Milan. Apparently the Italians are keeping an eye on his progress with a view to coming in with a bid this summer and while I’m pretty sure they’ll be told to do one, it’s a mark of how far Jenkinson has come that you wouldn’t put your house on it.
Finally today, as I suggested might happen yesterday, Arsenal are looking into arranging a friendly match for some time in the next week to keep Bac and Jack on the comeback track. Good news. For them and anyone who’s desperate for any sort of Arsenal shaped distraction from another interminable international break.
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8 Responses to “Inter keen on Sagna + Park’s Arsenal career officially a write off”
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The funniest thing is that Park’s career at Arsenal was written right before it started.
“He could at least have made a crack about wanting to make sure every mid-table team weren’t able to park the thing across their goalmouth next time they visit the Emirates.”
Is Chelski classified as mid-table?
Spot on.A good read I must say. Well, it turns out Podoski too is getting affected by the “miserly” ways at Arsenal…..saving fuel costs…
This look like it purely a bit of book-keeping window dressing for the financial fair play. By writing down his value now when they don’t need the accounting profit (as they are posting one for this year anyway) it means that they won’t have to take a loss in the future, when things might be tighter. Also, if they do ever sell him for a fee, that will go straight to accounting profit for that year, so all seems to make sense. I actually wondered whether Man City may have done this with all their stockpiles of players that they don’t actually want, and thay way they can sell them next year for knock down fees but still register an accounting “profit”. UEFA will probably accept it, as they don’t really want to try to stop clubs circumnavigating the rules (Having said that, I may be wrong but I’m not sure we could convince the taxman on it – accounting profit isn’t the same as taxable profit)
Right from the off the park deal was a contrived one to say the least. this was done purely to offset tax and as an ffp precaution. park will stay on loan until the end pf his contract unless someone offers to buy him. if and it is a massive if he show form in a decent league arsenal can recall or sell him for profit. if he doesnt we have already factored his next 3 seasons wages in the last tax year. its a win-win for everyone. If i am not mistaken we did exactly the same thing last year with a number of reserve players so i dont see as that big a deal. its just this one is a little more high profile.
@ BC – thanks for that explanation, it seems like we haven’t lost out at all and a calculated risk that did end up being too bad in the end.
Hi guys I personaly don’t think park has been written off his registration is still with us on arsenal & FIFA.com plus on transfer market celta payer a fee to us for his services @ £440,000 for the year interms of sagna there will be a big question mark over his fitness 2broken legs back2back I’ve never heard of any player coming back to be 100% – inter offer will need to be accessed & more than likely go through
Talking bout legs reports in France say kos may have just broken his leg pls confirm pray this is Not so