The biggest, most important day of the Arsenal calendar is upon us. Arsenal have released their financial records! And better still, they’re the expected large profits! An open topped bus parade is expected, with Stan Kroenke performing a number of cash-related numbers at the concluding concert at the Emirates.
These include ABBA’s ‘Money, Money, Money’, ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’, and Pink Floyd’s ‘Money’, with Ivan Gazidis and Tomas Rosicky guesting on keyboards and guitar respectively.
Brass tacks
I don’t want to bore you with a long and detailed description of Arsenal’s fiscal exploits, but here’s the basics: Arsenal made about 17.8 million pounds, leaving their standing cash balance at around £123 million. What is classed as ‘usable’, as in, able to be used in theory to buy players, is £99 million. That’s not including money from the new Emirates deal or a potential new kit deal.
That’s a lot of money, and of course the usual questions will arise as to why it’s not been used up to now, and still may not be. There will be questions as to Stan Kroenke’s intentions, but he’s still yet to take a penny out of the club. He’s yet to put any in, but that’s by-the-by. He’s an investor.
Lots of money. A surprising reliance on player sales to make money, which suggests it could have been planned or at least expected, but that should change with new sponsorship deals.
What to do?
Well, there’s much talk of a ‘warchest’ for Arsene Wenger, which is largely PR for season ticket renewals. But the boss has been making noises about spending money this summer, in a way different to his classic ‘if we find the right player we will do it’ spiel. Considering the inflated values of transfers and wages, £99 million gets you a fair bit, but not much.
The Express, who like Arsenal transfer stories at the moment, seem to think Wenger has expressed a desire to sign Falcao in the summer. That wasn’t so much what he said, he more suggested it was financially possible for Arsenal, but with the competition I wouldn’t buy a named shirt just yet. Or ever really. Waste of money. Unlike Falcao (hah-de-hah).
There was also a tenuous link to Younes Belhanda, in that Arsenal once scouted him and he wants to leave, but that’s more basic adding up than any kind of interest.
If you want a clearer breakdown of Arsenal’s finances I strongly recommend visiting the timeline of the excellent @SwissRamble for an agenda-free look at what the report actually says. A lot of people are using these figures in a lot of different ways, and it isn’t really helping Gooner unity ever.
Have a nice day. As nice as you can, with Spurs playing. Ruins my day every time they do.
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A more realistic figure would be £40-50m (based on retaining a £50-60m cash reserve).
However, additional revenues should add to that, e.g. shirt sponsor, which would give a figure of £70-80m. Maybe even as high as that £99m if they get the kit deal sorted earlier, and a few other things sorted (player sales, etc.).
My guess is that the £80m figure that appeared in the press a few days ago is pretty accurate, and would suggest an internal source.
As we are all aware, having the money to spend and actually spending it are completely different matter...but we can continue to dream of Falcao.
The fact that we did not bring more quality players in is bad enough, but the fact that we continue to pay fortunes to people like Arshavin and Squilachi who are not even good enough for our bench is outrageous. They are just the tip of the iceberg, just check out how many players we have out on loan where we are heavily subsidising their wages, who we all know will never play for us again as they simply aren't good enough. We need to have a ruthless cull of players this summer and ONLY bring in top quality players, fit wear the shirt.