Ivan Gazidis has announced Arsenal’s financial results for the year ending 31 May 2011 and established that the club starts its 125th year in a strong position.
Playing up the board’s mission, “to support and fund on field success and to enhance the fan experience,” the Gunners CEO stressed that while the prevailing economic climate had hindered the forecasted profits on the property side of the business, Arsenal were still well placed to compete in the transfer market and were a model of sustainability envied by rivals.
“The way the Club is run is something that we know our fans are very proud of, but they look at the world and they see that player costs are accelerating upwards and they wonder if we can compete. I believe we can, I believe we have a really good financial basis to do that, and I also think the football world is moving in our direction.
“We represent the future of the football world and all the other clubs are trying to get towards a sustaining model like Arsenal already has. They look at Arsenal as a model for how they can do that.”
Justifying his positivity by pointing to UEFA’s new regulations on the way clubs spend money, he continued:
“Uefa is bringing in new Financial Fair Play regulations which mean that clubs will not be able to spend more than they earn. We’re in the good position of already being fully compliant with those regulations so we feel we are well set for developments that are going to happen in the game over the next few years.”
Many fans have expressed concern at Arsenal’s apparent failure to maximise their marketing potential in the last decade, having watched the club tie themselves to long-term deals with the likes of Nike and Emirates airlines ahead of the move from Highbury in 2006. Nevertheless, with a new team of professionals put in place to guide the club forward on such matters, Gazidis believes that progress is being made.
“We’ve been very consistently competitive at the top of the English game, at the top of the European game, for many, many years, and I strongly believe that will continue. One of the real growth areas that we have is on our commercial revenues and we’re already seeing that the investment we’ve made in the commercial side of our business is paying off.
“We have new partnerships and increased revenues developing out of the commercial side and I think that will continue to be the case over the next few years. It will drive the Club forward so as the property money that we have coming in over the next few years begins to come to the end of its natural life we will have really strong commercial revenue streams that come in year after year that can put us right at the top of the game. That gives me great confidence for the future.”
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Okay, now pay attention…here comes the economics bit (taken straight from Arsenal.com).
- Group turnover was £255.7 million (2010 – £379.9 million). Reduction was due to the expected lower level of property sales activity.
- The sale of apartments at Highbury Square is in its final stages, with 69 sale completions in the year (2010 – 362) generating £30.3 million of revenue from property (2010 – £156.9 million).
- Operating profit in the property business was £12.6 million (2010 – £15.2 million) including the write back of part of a previous impairment provision in respect of the Queensland Road development site.
- Operating profit (before exceptional costs, depreciation and player trading) in the football business was £45.8 million (2010 – £56.8 million) with commercial gains offset by increased wage costs.
- Loss from player trading of £14.7 million (2010 – profit of £13.6 million) with no significant disposals of registrations in the year.
- Group profit before tax was £14.8 million (2010 – £56.0 million).
- The Group’s property business continues to be debt free and generating surplus cash for the Group. The overall level of Group net debt had been reduced to £97.8 million (2010 – £135.6 million) at the balance sheet date.
I can’t stand Ivan Gazidis, he doesn’t give two shits about the fans or the performance of the team. It’s all money, money, money. I just wish he didn’t speak, he can stick his constant ‘self-sustaining model’ talk up his arse.
I’m not proud of the way we ran our club last year that’s for sure but I must be in the minority then.
We could be flat fucking broke, like 95% of all other football clubs.
I know it’s not a trophy or anything but sometimes it’s worth bearing in mind.
What’s the pink about Blogs? Is it my iPhone playing silly buggers?
Dunno, think it’s to do with the liking comments thing. Will have a look under the hood
Yeah pink is for ‘hot debate’ and yellow is for ‘well liked’.
In any other sector of business, the majority of clubs wouldn’t exist, such is the state of their finances.
So it’s great we’ve a self sustaining model, but the downside is we’re relying upon the ultimate cuntishnessly useless outfit on God’s earth – UEFA – to implement FFP and help us make our model work and others fail.
Commence holding breath…
The number that jumps out of the figures for me is the sharp rise in the wage bill, up 12% to £124m from £111m in the previous year. So we are paying the players more. Perhaps we were just paying the wrong ones. One thing, though, if wages are up 12% but revenue is flat (the football business grew only 1% to £225m from £223m) that is unsustainable. Need to get the whips out to flog the commercial deals harder.
It seems strange to talk about ‘competing on player costs’ when our best players keep leaving because we cannot compete on either wages or trophies. It flies in the face of the reality of what is happening at the club.
when our contract with Emirates end in 2014 , maybe that new sponsor will allow the club to benchwarmers 150,000 per week
when our contract with Emirates end in 2014 , maybe that new sponsor will enable the club to benchwarmers 150,000 per week
Like/Dislike commenting? Not Bad.
Ladies and gentlemen our debt is only £97.8 million. Tha’st right. Yes our revenue is down, yes the group profits are down but heck… we are in a recession, and 2010 figires were exceptional due to the sale of property assets. I say well done to the club for maintaining such strong financial accounts ( even with high salary cost). But we need to generate more revenue through commercial enterprises. because we cannot live on gates attendence alone.
Exactly debt down to £97.8 from £300 odd million in about 5 years. That’s impressive. So we could be looking at being completely debt free in 2 years (assuming £97.8 includes the mortgage for the Emirates) which on current figures would mean an annual profit of what £60 million? Factor in lucrative new shirt/stadium sponsors in 2014 and as a club we could be looking at making close to £100 million in profit per annum. Now of course we should spend at least half that every year improving the team but that would mean a top class team AND £50… Read more »
Surely the whole point is we are not fucking broke but just act as tho we are
I definitely agree we could use our money better.
We could spend what we earn on selling players that equal the quality of the players we sell.
“You may say that I’m a dreamer……”
[…] mentioned above, it is surely yet another poor PR display by Gazidis to inform the fans of Arsenal that we are still strong financially. If that was the case, why were we priced out in terms of offering Juan Mata better wages? If as […]
Maddo we are in recession your right and the figures are good I applaud that I really do, but I honestly believe that if we invested in the right players at the right time, and I don’t mean paying silly money then we would be in better position going forward, now worst scenario we don’t qualify in 4 th place and attendances drop like they will, revenues will drop fact due to lack of shirt sales etc etc then who wins then. All I’m saying is we should have gave arsene the money to spend that he deserves to maintain… Read more »
The only bad mistake ( in my opinion) Arsene have made over the past five years was not loaning/buying a defender in the January 2011 window, with TV5 away injured. I thought that was shortsighted. Apart from that I am happy with the players we current have in the team. In all teams there are journey men, and quality. We have both at present. The past is gone and nothing can be down. I am hoping that by Arsene being in the elevated position of the Director’s box watching the last three matches ( CL), he has finally noticed the… Read more »
Sometimes in buisness you have to spend, take a risk, to make money. If you dont you will fall behind the competition. Arsenal of today is a perfect example on taking stuping nonrisks and thereby losing ground to the “big three” and becoming the “slightly less than the big three three” where the Spuds are included. Who would have thought that three years ago? If the Arsenal had invested every little penny they earned on player sales maybe we still would be in competition for the big trophies and we could keep our star players like fabregas, who went to… Read more »
Those of you who are saying we should have spent to stay at the top … We can’t bargain on champions league revenue. Imagine we’d spent all our money, and then through injuries/suspensions/bad luck narrowly missed out on 4th place. Then we’d have had to sell our best players anyway to cover the “loss” ie non-gain from CL, taking us into a negative spiral. Just look at what happened to Leeds, I’m sure we’d all much rather be in our position than theirs
Most of us say “spend the money we get from sales”. Not the entire fortune.
No, you’ve been saying that, and it’s not an unreasonable suggestion. I’m sure some of the boardmembers have held such a view.
However, the ‘Most of us’ you refer to have actually just been saying SPEND SPEND SPEND.
The uefa fair play is a nonsense. Uefa, like many other bodies can be bribed. Honestly, can you see them telling the likes of Man shity, Chelsea and real Madrid, you can’t play in Europe thus removing some of the best players in the world from competing on the European stage. I don’t think so. Let’s have a third strip sponsor for £400m then we too could be competative. Oh no, hang on a minute we wouldn’t spend it anyway. Apparently we were well placed to compete in the transfer Market. What a complete and utter load of bullshit. Gazidis,… Read more »
Oye Gazidis…. Shut yer fooking piehole!
Kroenke Inc are gonna slowly scavenge our club… Same shite was spewed to the Rams & Broncos fans and they have been in mid table mediocrity ever since… profitable, but average on the field….
http://m.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/may/10/stan-kroenke-arsenal-cash-dividends?cat=football&type=article
We must buy top quality players we keep being told. OK, well from a non-financial wizard here is my estimate of how this would work… We have 50 million pounds free cash, and we made 12 million pounds profit. We don’t have any profit from player trading last year as we lost 14 million pounds. So we have 62 million pounds to spend. What does a top player cost? How about 40 million pounds ? That’s actually a bit cheap for a proper superstar, but let’s assume that we got lucky due to our Arsene factor. OK, so now our… Read more »
Well said!! What I’m really waiting for is FFP and how it will (if it will?) really affect the other clubs who operate like it’s Football Manager all the time; I’m talking Chelsea Man City Barcelona Real Madrid Man United, the lot. Indeed some of them could still carry on well e.g. Real Madrid who are like a global brand with their ‘superstar’ players and commercial revenue; I heard something recently about them doing well financially in the past year or so and lessening their debt considerably significantly…don’t know whether its true or not though. Nevertheless it will be interesting.… Read more »
I gave you a thumbs down when I meant to give you a thumbs up. Sorry. Agree with your sentiments and let’s hope we get win 4 on the trot tomorrow. Following the dubious Man City deal, that if approved by UEFA will destroy FFP other sponsorship deals are rumoured to be in the pipeline: The very private Roman Abramovic has developed a craving for publicity and will sponsor Chelsea for half a billion for printing his name in their matchday program. 600,000 Indian chickens will send a pound each to Blackburn via their buddy Venky for making their species… Read more »
Good arguments but, I would like to think, that the revenues would increase from the sales and advertisements of a “star player”. Beckham and Ronaldo went to real for big money but they also pay for themselfs in the extra income they generate. As a contradiction to my own thoughts above, I`m not in to the buy a “big star” madness. Messi would be great but the players I want is the ones that makes the team better and keeps the WC we have at the club like RVP and JW who generates massive amounts of money in shirt and… Read more »
Yes, we do need to drive revenue growth. If we want to do it with purchased players I think we need to buy one or two of the better prospects in China and develop them in the way only Arsene and Arsenal can. Such players ought to be relatively cheap, and if we did it right then the revenue benefits for (hopefully) giving China one or two world class high profile internationals could be enormous. As an aside, early kickoffs are not everybody’s cup of tea, but they do attract bigger audiences in places like China and Australia (where I… Read more »
nothing matters more than what happens on the pitch. i hope ivan et all know that clearly. we’re in a strong position from years of beautiful winning play, we’re drawing credit from the henry, pires, vieira era. a couple of seasons without champs league football would change this perception of strength.
build success throughout the whole club from the pitch up. not the marketing department.
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