Earlier this week Arsene Wenger was quoted in the Belgian press talking about Eden Hazard but also the club’s need to make £15-20m profit by the start of each season.
Many people took this to mean it had to be made from transfer business alone, but today at his pre-Sunderland press conference, Wenger was asked about the comments and expanded a little on what he meant.
“I mean by that we want to pay the debt back from building the stadium and that’s around £15m, so it’s normal that at the start we have to make £15m or we lose money.”
He was immediately asked if this meant his hands were tied with regard to transfers and he answered with an emphatic “No”, before saying, “I accept one basic principle for every company and that’s that you can spend the money you make, and it looks always to be a massive surprise that I have to convince you of that.
“It’s just common sense and logic that what goes out has to equal what comes in and if that doesn’t work the company loses money.
“I am surprised that you’re surprised? Do you think the target of the club is to lose money? It’s normal for any company in the world so I don’t know why it’s a surprise.”
The boss also ruled himself out of the running for the England job, a question he was asked a surprising number of times given how jingoistic the press have been since Capello was sacked. The idea of the Frenchman in charge of England would certainly send many of them into fits of rage but they needn’t worry, Wenger has no interest in the job whatsoever.
“I have never really been tempted by a national team job because for me it is a completely different job. England is a big football country with over 65 million people who have a big passion for the game.
I love England and I want England to do well. Therefore I let the FA deal with that problem.”
And it seems their solution will be a saggy, twitchy-faced illiterate with one FA Cup to his name in 25 year managerial career. A true recipe for success.
Seriously, how many times does AW need to clarify himself. It’s the press that really don’t know how to interpret what he says and just look to stir things up. He said we need to make a profit overall, not a profit on transfers specifically. So annoying!
Very annoying!
I also hate the way he keeps calling AFC a company. He should be director of the club. Arsene is too involved and is playing on a field that is not level with billionaires monopolising the sport.
Fact: Arsenal Football Club is own by Arsenal Holding plc therefore by extension it is a company.
Reality is that companies and football clubs like us needs to make profit to service their debt especially when the economy in Europe is going tits up. If we don’t finish paying our debt, we get stuck paying interest forever therefore losing more money in the long run.
Even if there is a new manager, I still don’t see the club spending big with the current board and current situation.
Regardless of the press can you tell me you’ve not found his deliberate crypic statements frustrating? His comments reported last week were by no means twisted by our irritating tabloids and because of form for the past four/five years had all of us worrying.
So it’s to pay off the stadium? Strange. Why not list all your costs – player contracts, staff wages, ground maintenance, rent/business rates, utility bills etc etc? Those have to be paid as well before you “make a profit”.
Wenger is a smart man so I guess there’s a point in there that’s above my head (and that of the assembled hacks, obviously). Hopefully it’s aimed very squarely at Stan’s knackers, is all I can think.
Profit is what is left over after all your costs have been met. The stadium is one of those costs. So why is AW saying the profit is needed to meet that cost? That’s not profit then. It doesn’t make sense.
Besides which, would it not be better if the finance men at the club managed and talked about economics and our football team manager concentrated on coaching the team? His remit has been stretched too far.
That is a mistake easly done, He was miss quoted or misunderstood. That really doesn’t concern us now, he cleared it once and for all and we understand what he meant.
Also, we understand we have money and he is refusing to spend it while we are in 4/5/6/7th position. WHY? What is he saving it for? This is money if spent will not effect the club financial stands but it will effect the team position in the leaugue and the club standing in world football.
I think the mistake you’re making here is confusing debt (not a cost) with the financing of debt (a cost). When you take a loan, that’s treated as medium term capital – in this case, it was used to build the stadium. Every year you will have to pay interest on the remaining amount of the loan – this is in your profit and loss calculations. The loan itself is not in your P&L. You can choose to go on forever (assuming the creditors allow you to) in this way, but this means that every year you’ll be paying to… Read more »
A business makes an Operating Profit in order to cover fixed costs and, inter alia, to provide cash to invest in the business. So, Wenger is not wrong to say that he needs to make a profit from operations to cover the club’s commitments to loans – so do all other clubs, except those who make a thumping loss which is then written off by some rich owner.
It’s all semantics really. Currently, we generate enough cash to make bigger investments in the team than we seem to do and that is the issue.
Thumbs up for saleh and aj for concise explanation and talking sense.
It’s called a “break even point” A business needs to break even over non discretionary costs before it can survive.
Rent (stadium payment) is non discretionary. Wages are discretionary, if the wage bill is too high a club (business) can (or has to) employ less staff or cheaper players.
Well the true problem is Wenger thinks like an econimics/business person when he speaks about things like this and most others (as evidenced by the economic situation throughout Europe, America and most of the world) don’t. When he makes a comment like he did he doesn’t think he needs to clarify it because he knows what he means, but doesn’t realize others will invariably interpret it to means something else. Obviously to run an successful business you need to make money, it’s called capitalism. Arsenal isn’t run as a non-profit organization. You have to make money via ticket sales, marketing,… Read more »
true but there’s an old saying: “Jam yesterday, jam tomorrow, but never jam today” and it’s something that is constantly in the heads of more and more gooners growing tired of waiting for the “jam tomorrow” bit. and to be fair it’s understandable, particularly this season with the price increases and the unfortunate decrease in quality on the pitch/results. personally i think *if* the fair play rules make any difference at all then those factors will add up to arsenal being a lot more competitive in the seasons to come. that’s a big *if*, though. if the spanish giants, citeh,… Read more »
I don’t think I could listen to Paul Weller three days in a row. Once is hard enough.
ahahaha nice
Arsene doesnt need to clarify his statements unless asked upon. Its pathetic what kinda reporters are out there asking him questions. Before making your own interpretations one should ask the necessary and right questions but sadly that doesnt happen. The pundits, reporters will go on to make their own points without truly reasoning or confirming. Yes we dont have the luxury of asking Arsene questions but the one who do should be good enough..
So he’s not leaving to be England manager? Damn….
The vote is unanimous. We all want you to go be the England manager. Go on. Off you go. Close the door on the way out.
None of it makes sense that comes out from anybody at the club. It all seems so contradictory at times. Gazidis saying we have this amount wenger saying something else. Be really nice to get some definitive statement from the club regarding exactly where we are. As not all fans are economists and even arsenal a still have the odd working class supporter like me who just likes things spelt out straight and in a language that the average man can take in. If we are skint in terms of transfers then say so for fucks sake. If this is… Read more »
Wenger hasn’t said anything to refute what Gadzidis has said. If anything, it backs it up. Wenger has money to spend – he just doesn’t spend it….
The Ox – free
TV – free
Kos – free
Arteta – free
BFG – free
Gervinho – free
you – perhaps a little bit stupid? I fucking wonder…
Sam – Are you 12 years old or something? Perhaps next time I should put all of the accounts down. What I made was a general statement based upon the fact that he generally hasn’t spent much money and that he has funds for players…
I suppose £15m on an 18yr old from the third division isn’t much, you’re right. £10m on a french centre back few of us had heard of = not spending, doesn’t count. Only spending we want on players we’ve heard of counts, right?
pfft
Wenger has spent plenty, just not as much as some. Just because he doesn’t go out for wildly expensive star-fuckers of tranfers doesn’t mean “we don’t spend”…
Sam, you talk rubbish, we are talking NET spending!!! Don’t be shock when you learn that, Blackpool in the last 5 years spent 27 million more than us in NET transfer.
Here is the link.
http://www.transferleague.co.uk/league-tables/2006-2011.html
Sam – where did I say anything about ‘big names’? Perhaps you should stop with the straw man debate. It is common knowledge that Arsenal have a net spend per year of less than quite a lot of teams in the world and we have been a few players short and a squad paper thin for years now. We need players that can make this squad better because there are obviously players that Wenger will never play. We are one RVP injury away from serious problems. We are still holding out hope that Diaby returns. We waited until the window… Read more »
If you only post half of the transfer table then yes, it does look like Wenger doesn’t.
If, however, you post the full tables they have going back to ’92 (only 4 years before Wenger took over), you will in fact find that Arsene has spent around £314 million and recouped around £312 million. This averages out to spending around £20.9 million a year but the money in includes players who were free transfers like Fabregas and so we made a larger financial gain.
http://www.transferleague.co.uk/league-tables/1992-to-2011.html
CRF, You make no sense what so ever, what is Fab got to do with all this transfer and NET spending?????? Do you see the Spuds saying we signed Carrick for 3 and sold him for 18, or Barbflop for 10 and sold him for 30??? or Manure bought Ronaldo for 12 and sold him for 80???. Even with that table you provided which is 5 years worth of transfer before Arsene arrived and we use to still be able to spend we are low in the league of NET spending. Ok, here I will sue your logic, oh we… Read more »
It’s not as simple as buying and bringing in new players. Just because we don’t pay ridiculous money for players does not mean we don’t spend. Don’t forget that theres the 25 men rule, finding the right person for the club etc. Then there’s the issue of sorting their contracts and other fees while trying to have enough left for wages and enough wage to get our current players into new contract assuming that we don’t sell them. e.g. If we get top player for around £25m and lets say he earns £100,000 per week on a 3 year contract.… Read more »
Mmmmmm Jam…..
someone doesn’t like jam.
It’s not me but they could be more of a marmalade or lemon curd person. Maybe it’s lefty…..
The problem with our fans is that after those wins and invincible era some gloryhunters infiltrated into it, and its these people who are antagonising AW, its a shame, because they do not understand football. They shout some scum money bags are leading BPL/winning trophies then why can’t we, they can’t see that the same moneybags are running @120m loss, and its not like those sheek kebabs have aladin’s lamp and and get access to infinite source of money, this has happened before and will continue to happen. 7 years, the current leaders ,a certain team wearing blue jersey, and… Read more »
asron
this is where you fall in akb’s bracket
.according to wenger
“It’s just common sense and logic that what goes out has to equal what comes in and if that doesn’t work the company loses money”
no one wants 50m to be spent on a torres which we dont need, but should’nt we be replacing our two best performer (nasri and cesc) with if not better atleast equal quality.
this is where majority gets confused. the sequence shows the club is only intrested in profits not in the success of the club.
Can i ask (and this is an honest question), when did Nasri suddenly become one of our best performers? He had a good first half of the season and then tailed off massively (as shown with Man City this season). I only ask as the media portray this image as well and i’m just wondering where it comes from…
We had better players, Sagna, Song, Wilshere, etc.. who performed consistently well last season
What is oxo then? So far his performance is 10 times better in his short career with Arsenal than Nasri has had over 3 years with us…thus Nasri has been replaced with better quality! Surely even you can see that !!
Note that Nasri was good before Cesc got injured. After Cesc got injured, he tailed off. So please don’t say Nasri was one of our better performers.
If anyone was our best performers it would be Cesc, RvP, Wilshere, Djourou, Koscielny, Sagna and Song. Who put in shifts and performances for most part of last season. Saying Nasri as our best performer is a disgrace to Arsenal and calling him a Judas would be an insult to Judas.
Wholeheartedly agree Voldermort. If someone from the club was to say we’ve had no budget for the last 5 years, I think everyone would turn round and say “Wenger’s kept Arsenal in the Champions League for all this time on a pittance, what a genius”. As it is, we’re told that there is money (not how much) by the board, so it makes Wenger look foolish for not spending it. If the latter is true, and he hasn’t spent the money because he believed the players we have a good enough to compete right at the top, then he’s grossly… Read more »
I think the issue is not always the transfer fee ,it’s the Wages , It’s the reason we lose good players and the reason we don’t get established stars
Aaron. I never get abusive on here but the one thing that winds me up are muppets like you who talk absolute shite spouting something about the blues or whatever and assuming that anyone who has anything negative to say be it constructive or not is a ” glory hunter ”
How the fuck do you know if they have never been a game or like me have been a st holder since 1980.
Don’t assume mate just because some fans ain’t happy that it’s because they have only been going since the wenger years.
@voldemort: use some common sense! I never saw your post, as it was posted just 5 minutes before mine, It usually takes a bit long to type long messages such as mine’s or your’s… the world will be so nice if people start using their common senses a bit. As for your point, you put it straightforward. And not like something that ” f**k wenger, winker, or whatever” Its just a coincidence that mine followed yours. Peace!
we can’t help that we aren’t moneybags and don’t sell our clubs for the sake of glory. The thing I really don’t understand is our wage structure. How can one expect to hold on to a WC finalist [leaving apart his contribution to the club] with a salary of the order of 90k, while I suspect even Mario ballotelli’s getting more than that. Is Wenger involved in any mean with this ridiculous 16th century salary structure? [not sure,asking]
Fair do’s arron,apologies. But it’s still the same principle mate that not all people that post on here With what some people perceive to be negative comments are glory hunters. It’s all about opinions mate, good or bad. But believe me whatever side of the fence you sit, you will find supporters from all walks and from varying lengths of service.
Voldermort- The sentiment behind your point is correct, but it would be an utter disaster to tell the truth, which is that we have had very little money over the last 6 years or so. All our players would constantly get linked with other clubs and for paltry amounts, because we would be in financial meltdown. At least thats what the tabloids would print! We would also find it very difficult to convince top players to join us, even our own players would be less inclined to extend their contracts. I hate that we have had so little money. I… Read more »
I like turtles.
Stay true to your principals Arsene.
Surely we need to “speculate to accumulate” a little more though, but not in a leeds way. For instance, sell Arshavin, sell Bendtner, sell Vela, sell a host of other players on loan, dont spend £2M on players who wont ever play, add a bit more and bring in Hazard or someone else who will add something. Why didnt we get Mata when we had the chance?? Its not breaking the bank, its say, £10 million more to try and ensure £10m in the future for a CL place. I think many Arsenal fans are fed up of nearly winning… Read more »
we didn’t get Mata because his head is too big for his body. Oh, and because he’s a greedy cunt.
I kind of hate it when people use the phrase “many fans”. It makes me feel like 60 000 people at the emirates share that view only for another fan to use it in a contradicting statement. Anyway who cares about whether the profit comes from player sales or arsenal having stakes in that brothel with the auld slapper? It’s feb and that’s the least of my worries. I am pissed we didn’t spend as i had hoped in the summer and did nothing this last window but now it’s sunderland tomorrow, milan and the rest to come. For now… Read more »
I thought it was fairly clear where we are financially. I’m sure we were told there was about 40m in the transfer account last year weren’t we, or did I dream it? I don’t really get where this new line about ‘self sufficiency’ has come from, in the 30+ years I’ve been a fan we have always live within our means. I think it was Tom Watt who said the other day that if we do drop out of the CL, it won’t be the disaster some fans think, because we don’t buy the mega stars anyway, so chances are… Read more »
waiting for “blah blah blah Bank Manager blah blah blah, any minute now…”
or rather “blah blah blah Bank Manager blah blah blah”, any minute now…
the only club with 2 billionaires on the board, the only club that makes profit in most transfer windows, the only club that stayed in cl for 10+years , now dont tell me that we cannot afford a player for 25million, because we can , and this isnt man city type spending , its 1 or 2 world class albeit expensive experienced players that AFC is missing that would make us a real force in world football, yet no doubt wel fail to spend and drop out of the top 4 to be replaced by pool/spuds, see chelski city and… Read more »
Yep, we can bid 25m for a player, stick the best wage offer we can muster in front of them then hope he signs it before his agent goes running off to City or PSG wondering whether they’d double it or triple it. I’m pretty sure we’ve been trying to bring in decent players (didn’t we bid around 20m for M’vila over the summer?) but when it’s a big name other teams will simply pay more (like Mata or the Argie fella who Inter pinched from us). As it is, we’ve got ourselves a world class talent (although not a… Read more »
How is a 25 m player going to give you a guarantee when a proven 60m stricker and a 38m worth of pony tail won’t?
Any way i get your point about strengthening but what i don’t get is the specification on what amounts should be spent. Kosielney cost a fifth of what luiz was bought. Lets worry about who we bring in not how much we spend on them
My thoughts exactly, let’s look at the player rather than the price tag. Chelsea and city can afford expensive mistakes, we can’t.
Totally agree with ya gus. That’s the crying shame of it all. We don’t need to spend city type money as we are maybe 2 quality players away from being a very good side and maybe sell 3 or 4 makeweights and bring in another 2 or 3 squad players then maybe we will compete. But if rvp goes we have to find not only his replacement but adequate back up to as we don’t have it now. Then we could be talking city type money to rebuild and it just won’t happen. We are so close at the moment… Read more »
I would rather gain money rather than lose it, eh? Maybe it’s just me.
This line of questioning is symptomatic of the sports news media we have in this country. Sky Sports News is the worst offender, making an art of asking the same question 10 different ways without gleaning anything new in search of non stories that they can then plonk on their stupid yellow ticker.
I admire how Wenger doesn’t resort to treating them like the idiots they are and pretty much always plays a straight bat.
“Straight bat” …cricket eh??! 😀 😀
agree, although i sometimes wish he would go for the exasperated sarcasm of gordon strachan, who used to hand out some terrific one liners to abuse stupid questions.
Roy Keane the winner on some of his answers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFulcDJDJEU
Another one about Ireland not qualifying for world cup, its classic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8bkT6eIrnc&feature=endscreen&NR=1
Does not the extra revenue from the new ground more the pay the cost of the interest for the loan? What about the money we made from the transfers in the summer. If we keep selling world class players and replacing them with average ones, we will lose champions,premiership sponsorship and gate revenue . If you buy players they still have a resell value and transfer fees are not paid in one lump sum.if you are a company you also write down some cost over time and what about the tax advantates . So why are we not buying the… Read more »
Sorrey Feed should be few
Oh for the days when no-one used to give a flying fuck about this sort of stuff. You signed a player, you didn’t sign a player. You won things, you didn’t win things…
If you’d told me 25 years ago that we’d be 5th in the Deloittes league table in 2012, I’d have assumed I’d now be watching non-league footie.
Life was simpler in black and white.
if somebody had told you we’d be sending out teams made almost entirely of full internationals on a regular basis, with a couple of international team skippers on the bench, you’d have laughed and said “brilliant, we must be winning everything in sight!”. I would have. still, there we go…
Dear Arseblog,
Can we have a “Comment of the week” section on this site?
If so, I would like to nominate Karl’s “Mmmmmm Jam…..”
On the subject of transfers. Buying youngsters that don’t support the club will more often than not result in a lack of any real desire to stay when the likes of Barca come calling just on the off chance things will improve.
Yeah, but you now what lying bastards footballers are….
“I’m so happy to be joining this club. It was my favourite team when I was a boy”.
If you’d told me 25 years ago that we’d be 5th in the Deloittes league table in 2012, I’d have assumed I’d now be watching non-league footie.
Quality. Now that’s the comment of the week merlin
oh yeh, I only saw that after writing the other. Sorry Karl, there’s a new king in town.
It doesn’t make sense. Surely, after selling nasri and cesc we would have funds to get a replacement of their quality like Mata, Eriksen etc
Unfortunately that was the last Mata in the pet shop, and Chelsea won his loyalty by offering him Scooby Snacks as well as Pedigree Chum.
off topic but wouldn’t it be great if Arseblog had a forum?
To comment on news stories and what’s happening at Arsenal at the moment?
I am amused by the irony of Capello being forced out of the England Manager’s job, as a consequence of an issue about racism and then we hear all the journos and pundits who were appalled by him standing up for Terry, saying that we must have an Englishman in charge in future. It’s also ironic that we are happy to have a man act as caretaker manager who not so long ago called Paul Ince an ” arrogant bl**ck c**t ” and whose brother is an active BNP supporter! Double standards or what? PS: Not that I want to… Read more »
Personally, I’m glad that Wenger has clarified his earlier statement about the profits that the club nees to make. If we need to make an operating profit of 15 to 20 million to pay for the stadium then fine.
I just wish that somebody at the club would be honest about just how much money we have to spend on transfers. Is there or isn’t there substantial money for transfers? How much is it? And if there is money then why isn’t it being spent?
Never let your opposition know how much you have to spend. That just tells them how much they must spend to outbid you (Except Chelsea, Man City, Barcelona, PSG, Real Madrid, and that Anky Mawanky Russian team, who don’t give a flying fcuk what you have because they know they have much, much more)
I dont think Arsene is really gonna go in an in depth financial debate with the press, so to get any sort of financial indication of the club’s situation or its resources from a small statement is just impossible. Think what he meant by his statement is that we need to generate about £15m profit to pay off our costs in respect to the stadium in general seeing as that is one of the most important costs to bear. But dont think its worth reading much more into that to be honest. One thing consistent from all at Arsenal is… Read more »
I miss people like Good Bloke, Mooro, Frog and other older types. It seems we’re starting to drown in sycophants.
Fucking hell mate, there’s less moaning because we’ve won a game so you find something else to moan about!
Get yourself 20 IP addresses to thumb people down from and redress the balance, that might cheer you up for a couple of minutes.
Besides, some of the sycophants are probably old timers too 🙂
It’s because some people see a number of thumbs up as justification for thier argument,
A simple coyg will always get more thumbs than any reasoned argument that is remotely negative no matter how much of that argument is based on fact. Sad
hey… Just discovered this blog… really wanted to know if usmanov is going to buy arsenal as i will love to see him instead of silent stan… or is it only me… Pls i really need a reply because i am now confused
I love Arsene and reckon he’s an amazing manager however…I don’t really like how he always refers to the football club as a ‘company’. Its a more than a company to me, its something you grow up with and love. Can’t say I love a company. I dunno, what do you guys reckon?
Whilst we are not winning anything – it’s ‘a Company’.
If by some miracle Wenger started winning things again, I can assure you he would start to refer to it as’ a Club’ once again.
So just to clarify – ‘Company’ it is.
Valid point Rob.
I am afarid with the gunners focussed on profit,they miss the big picture.The move to the ES was to generate funds to compete at the highest level. Frankly it has been one big disappointment after another. The title is as as good as Manchesrte bound.It’s either MC or MU. So don’t be surprised at the conspiracy theory. We have PV 4 saying so.There could be some truth otherwise how on earth the red faced can’t carry his dominance to the cl. i believe it’s his obssession to prevail in the cl. But he won’t be able to do so. There’s… Read more »
i forgot to addp if MU win the title again,the epl be called the MU premier league. this will make ssure the title is MU again and again for the next fifty years. The conspiracy theory is rearing its ugly head. Suarez was brought down by Ferdinannd. The Rd being the last defender shd have been sent off. Instead nothing was given There so many cases of refs giving the red face benefits that it could mean only one thing. The FA and refs are determined the title stays at MU.I am not the only one. There are many others… Read more »
This is Arseblog not Manblog.
i was wondering at which point some negative asshole will pop up to shit on the loyal fans victory niceties…enter northern gooner. where do these cunts come from?