This is the last straw

By 1970's Gooner

Walcott is refusing to sign a new contract. This is the last straw. It’s spreading around the Emirates like the plague. Any player on Arsenal’s books who has or believes he has some star quality wants out.

The fact is that Arsenal are now perceived (by its players) to be a selling club and indeed this is so. So an Arsenal player who thinks he is somebody does one of two things.

He either jumps at the opportunity of going to a more successful and less stingy in terms of salary, club way before his contract ends (eg Song) or refuses to sign a contract extension and lets his contract run down to the final year (as RVP did and as Walcott intends to do).

This is inevitable in my mind and is a direct result of the football model that AFC has decided to follow. This model is based on sound financial principles of running the club as a business and not necessarily as a club in the hunt for trophies. The latter is always sacrificed for the former.

And running the club as a business means that profit is of paramount importance. It could have been that the present shareholders invested their money elsewhere, in a different sector altogether. Their ultimate aim would still be the same: making a profit and eventually selling the shares at a premium.

That’s why Stan Kroenke has been allowed buy shares in Arsenal and not Usmanov. Stan is there to realise a hefty profit down the line IRRESPECTIVE whether Arsenal win anything during that time or not.Usmanov on the other hand would throw money in the club with the aim of winning trophies but dilute the value of the shares in the process. And this is anathema to the present shareholders.

The move to the Emirates and the hefty borrowing placed upon the shoulders of the club falls directly in line with this philosophy. A stadium much bigger than Highbury with a 60,000 capacity crowd paying highly expensive ticket prices is creating substantial revenue and operational profits. Add in the profits being made on the transfers of players and you have a very lucrative business proposition.

Once the loans have been paid off these operational profits will no longer be used up to pay off the Banks. Net profits will shoot upwards and seriously bulge the net worth of the club and the value of the shares, which will rise to astronomic proportions.

That’s when the shareholders will sell.

But this is not due for another 10 years!

In the meantime the whole model is made viable by the genius of one man: Arsene Wenger. He makes it possible by doing two things.

Firstly he finds and buys gems, has the extraordinary ability to turn them into star players and when they grow disillusioned with the lack of success he sells them off at a huge profit (thus helping to create the resources to make up the loan installments).

And secondly he manages to get us into the Champions League year after year creating more profits but also importantly keeping us, the supporters, reasonably interested to keep filling up the stadium.

The trouble is what will happen when Wenger for any reason is not there any more. Or he fails to get us into the CL. He is human after all.