The Long Term Future of our Club

[bradders]

[quote="Wengerball"]http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footba ... risis.html

The key to getting back on a level playing field with the big teams in our league (no we're not going to buy top quality talent)- We're hoping for another recession.[/quote]

I dunno why I'm laughing

[USMartin]

Do things the "arsenal way" or with "tradition" and we'll carry on with the same arguments you get on here day in day out. Basically we will go backwards !

Move forward and get the sugar daddy who wants to win, who can't stand losing, wants to be the best and we'll become a force again.


It's one of those situation where if you can't beat them, join them and we need a mega rich owner. Because currently we won't pay the top wages and thats what you've got to do to get the best.

We can if we had a different board. No need for a sugardaddy.

it is actually depressing that with all this money we make all be it with crap commercial revenue we can't afford to stump up the money buy the best players in the world.

I do think both the board and Wenger are holding us back.
Whether they're waiting for the debts to clear or more revenue to come in only time will tell. It's only a short time as well.

It's clear that more can, and could, be done now.

Anyone know where the loan debt stands?

Boomer the problem is that debt won't be paid until 2031 as Quartz has said here. They will not pay aheead of schedule because there a re actually penalties for doing so in place. So if in fact that is that is holding us back and it is actually what is holding us back we have a longer wait than you would like to think I fear...

[USMartin]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footba ... risis.html

The key to getting back on a level playing field with the big teams in our league (no we're not going to buy top quality talent)- We're hoping for another recession.[/quote]

I dunno why I'm laughing

Beacuse you just realized Mr. Wenger is an American Republican Party member?

[Boomer]

Do things the "arsenal way" or with "tradition" and we'll carry on with the same arguments you get on here day in day out. Basically we will go backwards !

Move forward and get the sugar daddy who wants to win, who can't stand losing, wants to be the best and we'll become a force again.


It's one of those situation where if you can't beat them, join them and we need a mega rich owner. Because currently we won't pay the top wages and thats what you've got to do to get the best.

We can if we had a different board. No need for a sugardaddy.

it is actually depressing that with all this money we make all be it with crap commercial revenue we can't afford to stump up the money buy the best players in the world.

I do think both the board and Wenger are holding us back.
Whether they're waiting for the debts to clear or more revenue to come in only time will tell. It's only a short time as well.

It's clear that more can, and could, be done now.

Anyone know where the loan debt stands?

Boomer the problem is that debt won't be paid until 2031 as Quartz has said here. They will not pay aheead of schedule because there a re actually penalties for doing so in place. So if in fact that is that is holding us back and it is actually what is holding us back we have a longer wait than you would like to think I fear...

yes.

[MadRich]

Anyone with a bit of economics knowledge knows they is some truth in what he is saying.
With the possibility of the likes of Greece, Portugal and to some extent Italy & Spain going bankrupt; we are in for a bumpy ride.

The Euro bailout will begin to show its effects in a few months time whether it has worked or not.

Anything related to football, ticket, transfer, wages, etc is overpriced at the moment and that bubble WILL soon burst.
Just as the house prices where over priced, that bubble will burst.

Arsenal wage bill maybe big, but our player depreciation is very little, so 'our wage bill is high etc' doesn't count.. When in comparison to other similar clubs.

Now Arsenal has two options, either to wait it out or sell to a sugar daddy/ Usamov.

I vote for the later, fuck everything, join them, at least we all fall together.

However everything is a big IF Euro gets fucked! which might not happen soon.
But eventually the billionaires will wnat some of the money back and that will mean higher prices for everyone up to the point people give up football.

[TeeCee]

Billionaires won't want their money back. Take Abramovich for example, Chavski 'owed' him millions and millions and he wrote it all off and took it as equity, therefore he could sell to someone else but the Chavs won't go broke. Sheik Mansour will never want the money back, it's a drop in the ocean to him.
Making a stand against Money/debt in football is only worthwhile if everyone plays ball. Problem is, the likes of Man U, Man C, Chavs, Barca and Madrid wil never do it so the notion is fucked before it even starts.
You either join the party or you sit at home on your own. At the moment we're looking distinctly like Billy no Mates!

[Red Gunner]

...

[safcftm]

2. Yeah yeah Arsene sure. The man with the degree in Economics who paid £10 mil for Koscielny, and has Vela, Bendtner and Denilson on loan at a cost of £10 mil to the club, the man that pays Diaby more than Modric. The man who earns £6.5 mil a year but then talks about the excesses in football....yeah yeah mate sure. Great economist you are! Pfffft....

I might be getting the wrong end of the stick here, but how is having players out on loan costing the club? Cant talk for Vela and Denilson but I know that Sunderland paid in the region of £2m to take Bendtner on loan for a season and are paying a substantial amount of his wages. Even in its "only" 30k of them, we'll have him on loan for about 40 weeks or so, meaning 1.2 million saved- hence this deal, whilst depriving you of Bendtners unique skill set of course, has made Arsenal 3.2m better off than they would have been had they kept him (whilst still having him as a saleable asset). I'm sure the other lads will be on similar deals. Again, I might have misunderstood your point

Anyway, a lot of Arsenals apparent tactics, and their success, will be judged on partly the financial situation in football as mentioned by Wenger, and partly by how wide reaching the financial fair play rules become (obviously we expect them to be easy enough to get round but you never know).

The annoying thing is that, although I can fully understand gooners wanting to see the club turn to a sugar daddy and become like the other clubs that are spoiling the sport, Arsenal should be right up there along with Man United if football was actually to be a decent sport. When your success depends solely upon how rich your billionaire is, it ceases to be a sport and this is why I am genuinely getting less and less interested in football. I'd love it if Sunderland were to be taken over by someone willing to buy us the league but it would feel fake and I think very quickly I'd realise that theres no pride in it, and the glory of winning is lessened substantially by the fact you've sold your soul to do it. As I say, it isnt a sport, and its annoying that Arsenal who are currently "doing it right" seem to be seen as needing to change to fit in when really its the other fuckers who should be forced to change

Clubs should be, imo, allowed to raise their own sponsorship money and should be allowed to negotiate their own TV deals. That way the quality of your marketing department can affect how much money comes into the club. You should be able to add that to your other income streams (gate receipts, prize money etc) and that (or a percentage thereof) should be all that you are allowed to spend. If you dont want to make profit fine, but you shouldnt be allowed to operate at a loss as the likes of Man City are doing because it makes for an entirely false competition. Arsenal have good revenue streams, they have a good youth system, I'd have no problem with them being considerably ahead of SAFC every season because at least its football related. At least we could try to invest more into our academy to produce a talent line and an income stream, could hope to market better, build a team and eventually compete. Football would be fair if this was done, it'd be a sport. Currently we could never compete without a billionaire and its looking like neither can you

So are Arsenal right to be hoping to ride out the storm and emerge on the other side as a financially strong club capable of dominating (or at least competing with Man United) within their budgets? Well, it depends on your opinion but I genuinely think that before long a lot of big clubs will overstretch themselves and either "do a Leeds" (or worse) or a club like Man City will see the owners get bored, walk away and leave them owing them hundreds of millions of pounds (in the instances where the owners havent converted their capital into shares- where the money is a loan these clubs can be fucked). You have to ask whether a few years of success is worth risking seeing a club of Arsenal's stature and tradition relegated to league one or below. For me it wouldnt be. I can understand the boards position and I can see why Wenger apparently backs it. Partly its about remaining true to yourselves and knowing that any success is thoroughly deserved (and one FA Cup under those circumstances is worth more than a Man City league title), but also its about safeguarding the club. Of course maybe you could get a sugar daddy, win everything in sight (they'd need to be fucking rich though with the city lot around) and be fine, but its a risk and the sensible option, however much it annoys fans now, is not to take it. If Arsenal never compete at the very top and win league titles again it's a bad decision, if other clubs fade, new regulations come in and you emerge as a superpower then it was a great decision. I have my opinion on it as does everyone else but only time will tell who is right

[brazilianGOONER]

absolutely spot on, saftcm. very good post and agree with you 100%

the only sad part is that sometimes arsenal (be it wenger or the board) are over zealous in a way that strengthening the team just a bit more in moments past (now I couldn't say that anymore) could have meant us being up there again with man united and chelsea. I think we were that close in many moments, like 07-08, but stuff like having manuel fucking almunia as our first choice goalkeeper for three seasons meant we were always a bit short. or sometimes a long way off.

[safcftm]

absolutely spot on, saftcm. very good post and agree with you 100%

the only sad part is that sometimes arsenal (be it wenger or the board) are over zealous in a way that strengthening the team just a bit more in moments past (now I couldn't say that anymore) could have meant us being up there again with man united and chelsea. I think we were that close in many moments, like 07-08, but stuff like having manuel fucking almunia as our first choice goalkeeper for three seasons meant we were always a bit short. or sometimes a long way off.

Oh I agree with you there mate. Whilst I don't think they should be looking to sell up to a sugar daddy and rely on being bankrolled and possibly ran into the ground by someone who is likely if they've made that much money to be less than clean, I do think they should have been investing more money in the squad. There have been times when a relatively small outlay might well have addressed a key position and allowed Arsenal to genuinely compete for the title, and it seems daft not to have done so.

By now it seems that the board have almost accepted that they cant spend their way to the title though and it would appear as if a decision has been taken that if they cant actually afford to spend enough to win it, the important thing is just to keep in the top 4 for the CL money at the lowest possible cost. Buy a player for £20m and you might get 3rd instead of 4th, but the additional income for that is nothing compared to the outlay and you'd really need to hope the player can propel you much further in the CL to make the money back. Plus a £20m player wants massive wages- you then risk all the other players wanting parity etc. I think for now they just see it that whatever they do, they cant compete with the likes of Man City who have an unfair advantage of having money as effectively no object. So its either sell to a potentially dodgy sugar daddy and risk the clubs future, spend a shit load now to try and compete with clubs who can always just spend more, and risk the clubs future, or concentrate on running a tight ship, paying off the stadium etc and waiting for the other clubs to start to suffer. Like I say, I can understand why gooners wouldnt like this third option, but for me its better than the other 2.

I just hate the fact that teams need a billionaire to win anything. I'm sure a lot of us play Football Manager and you know how its great when you go a team, do well and win the league? Well I also find the urge to sometimes go Sunderland and give us unlimited funds and the richest backer. Thing is, it always sounds like fun but then you start and you think "ah fuck it, this is hardly a challenge its just cheating", you cant enjoy the success. This is what real football is getting like, why should teams even bother fucking entering when a side like Man City can just outspend us all, buy all the best players and make us risk financial ruin to compete? Fucking pisses me off. I'd rather see clubs just run a tight ship, operate as actual football clubs and either the billionaires can get bored eventually and fuck off, or they can form a shitty super league and fuck off. Basically I just want them to fuck off

[QuartzGooner]

Agree with SAFCTM and BrazilianGooner, with one extra point to elaborate on something SAFCFTM wrote.

He said that a billionaire would have to be rich enough to take on the Man City owners.

And it is a very good point.
The Man City owners are worth so much that who can really take them on pound for pound?
Their oil money is extraordinary.
(Richpye: I cannot find terrorist links for Abu Dhabi, though torture allegations exist for Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan, the half-brother of the Manchester City owner).

But I did like Usmanov's suggestion of a new share issue to raise about £50M purely for new players.
Thing is, would existing share holders want that, as I think it would dilute the value of their shares?

[brazilianGOONER]

absolutely spot on, saftcm. very good post and agree with you 100%

the only sad part is that sometimes arsenal (be it wenger or the board) are over zealous in a way that strengthening the team just a bit more in moments past (now I couldn't say that anymore) could have meant us being up there again with man united and chelsea. I think we were that close in many moments, like 07-08, but stuff like having manuel fucking almunia as our first choice goalkeeper for three seasons meant we were always a bit short. or sometimes a long way off.

Oh I agree with you there mate. Whilst I don't think they should be looking to sell up to a sugar daddy and rely on being bankrolled and possibly ran into the ground by someone who is likely if they've made that much money to be less than clean, I do think they should have been investing more money in the squad. There have been times when a relatively small outlay might well have addressed a key position and allowed Arsenal to genuinely compete for the title, and it seems daft not to have done so.

By now it seems that the board have almost accepted that they cant spend their way to the title though and it would appear as if a decision has been taken that if they cant actually afford to spend enough to win it, the important thing is just to keep in the top 4 for the CL money at the lowest possible cost. Buy a player for £20m and you might get 3rd instead of 4th, but the additional income for that is nothing compared to the outlay and you'd really need to hope the player can propel you much further in the CL to make the money back. Plus a £20m player wants massive wages- you then risk all the other players wanting parity etc. I think for now they just see it that whatever they do, they cant compete with the likes of Man City who have an unfair advantage of having money as effectively no object. So its either sell to a potentially dodgy sugar daddy and risk the clubs future, spend a shit load now to try and compete with clubs who can always just spend more, and risk the clubs future, or concentrate on running a tight ship, paying off the stadium etc and waiting for the other clubs to start to suffer. Like I say, I can understand why gooners wouldnt like this third option, but for me its better than the other 2.

I just hate the fact that teams need a billionaire to win anything. I'm sure a lot of us play Football Manager and you know how its great when you go a team, do well and win the league? Well I also find the urge to sometimes go Sunderland and give us unlimited funds and the richest backer. Thing is, it always sounds like fun but then you start and you think "ah fuck it, this is hardly a challenge its just cheating", you cant enjoy the success. This is what real football is getting like, why should teams even bother fucking entering when a side like Man City can just outspend us all, buy all the best players and make us risk financial ruin to compete? Fucking pisses me off. I'd rather see clubs just run a tight ship, operate as actual football clubs and either the billionaires can get bored eventually and fuck off, or they can form a shitty super league and fuck off. Basically I just want them to fuck off

good were the times when good teams were made by good management and it took a lot of effort for titles to be won and stuff like that.

it's a shame that people are allowed to play football manager with real life

[safcftm]

good were the times when good teams were made by good management and it took a lot of effort for titles to be won and stuff like that.

it's a shame that people are allowed to play football manager with real life

Indeed- the days when football was actually a sport seem to have gone. Its stupid like- I've no doubt that the man city fans will celebrate if they win the title (we'd all do the same) but it must feel hollow as fuck. I dont honestly see how you can be proud of your club winning a title when its only won because a billionaire has bankrolled you, signing a lot of mercenaries and paying them a kings ransom to play for you. I'd be proud as fuck if my club developed some youths who came through into the first team and blended with well researched signings to claim an FA Cup or whatever, I'd feel very little if we bought it

[richpye]

He's deluded. City are basically funded by a country, and Abramovich has ploughed his money back into the club again recently.

Modern football has passed him by.

But in other posts, people criticise him for saying he would be happy to finish second for the next 20 years!!!

If I was fighting against a team funded by a terrorist regime and another by the equivalent of the siberian mafia, I would be very happy finishing 2nd!!!

Have you got any proof linking Abu Dhabi or UAE to terrorism, or did you just make that remark because they're Arab?

Woah, there's not a racist bone in my body, so don't go playing that card with me.
It is well known that the Emirates is hardly up front in it's dealings. Yemen for example has recently been described as the current safe haven of Al-Qaeda. Just look at the way the Arab Spring was dealt with in the Emirates - complete clampdown and almost total media blackout - we've managed to get more coverage from Syria!!!

[Jumpers For Goalposts]

He's deluded. City are basically funded by a country, and Abramovich has ploughed his money back into the club again recently.

Modern football has passed him by.

But in other posts, people criticise him for saying he would be happy to finish second for the next 20 years!!!

If I was fighting against a team funded by a terrorist regime and another by the equivalent of the siberian mafia, I would be very happy finishing 2nd!!!

Have you got any proof linking Abu Dhabi or UAE to terrorism, or did you just make that remark because they're Arab?

I thought the same thing when I read that post - that has to be one of the most ignorant things I've ever read on this Forum.

You need to be very careful mate, saying things like "funded by a terrorist regime". The Mansour family might not be everyones' cup of tea but suggesting any kind of link between them and any terrorist activity is plain stupid.

And they could afford much better lawyers than you . . . . .