Here’s a tip for all Gooners wanting to know what Arsenal will do this January transfer window: put down the sports pages and start reading the business section of your favourite newspaper/website/etc.
There you’ll find all sorts of doom and gloom about the economic future of the Eurozone. Just today The Guardian business section led with the headline “World Economic Forum warns of economic toil and social upheaval” while Reuters had a story proclaiming “Worst still ahead for Eurozone, but it will survive.”
Don’t think for a minute these headlines don’t factor into every decision the Arsenal boardroom, especially our hawkish manager Arsene Wenger and Master’s Degree in Economics from Universite de Strasbourg, makes when it comes to our beloved club.
In fact, Wenger all but admitted this when asked about his thoughts on forecasted crisis bearing down:
"I am convinced that Europe will go into a huge financial crisis within the next three weeks, or three months, and maybe that will put everything into perspective again," Wenger told reporters on September. "Football is not untouchable. We live by people going to the stadiums and from [sponsors] advertising to people who buy products. All our income could be a little bit under threat in the next few months."
Fortunately, Arsenal (if you believe the company line that keeps being pushed) is in good shape financially with a debt level that is under control, room for growth in terms of commercial revenue, and a decent sum of cash in the bank. Wenger even intimated this could lead to a shopping spree of sorts in the not-too-distant future:
"Economically the whole environment has changed and people suffer more," Wenger told reporters in mid-December. "The clubs will suffer more financially and it's much more difficult. Maybe we will have some opportunities because we are in a good financial situation."
Now before all Gooners go out and light up message boards with talk of big name signings it is important to remember a couple of things. Most significantly we are dealing with Arsene Wenger here – highly intelligent but extremely cryptic and often very frustrating. One gets the sense that he is playing mind games to get the upper hand on his rivals which is all well and good but it usually does the double duty of pulling on the nerves of supporters.
Secondly, Arsenal will not be if the financial crisis in the Eurozone deepens; fewer bodies will be coming through the gates at the Emirates, fewer jerseys will be sold, advertisers will have fewer dollars to throw around, every corner of the organization will be affected.
As previously mentioned, Arsenal has significant cash resources at their disposal. But to think this is all going to be used on transfers would be foolish and to think the Board aren’t holding some back to cushion the blow of the economic crisis or if the unspeakable event the Club doesn’t qualify for next year’s Champion’s League is realized would be even more so.
Furthermore it doesn’t seem the economic crisis has fully taken hold yet and it may not until the after the January 31 transfer deadline (funny how the entire world doesn’t revolve around this day). So until this happens and Arsene knows where the Club stands going into next season I don’t think we should expect too much.
But when it does let’s hope we see the hawkish Wenger put some action behind his words and swoop down to pluck the finest from some injured, unsuspecting prey.
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