It’s no secret that Arsene Wenger had hoped Britain would vote ‘Remain’ when it went to the ballot box on 23 June.
In the days before the referendum he, along with 140 other well-known Europeans with a vested interest in the UK maintaining relations with the EU, put his name to a ‘love letter to the UK’ published in the Times Literary Supplement.
“It is your decision, and we will all accept it,” the letter stated. “Nevertheless, if it will help the undecided to make up their minds, we would like to express how very much we value having the United Kingdom in the European Union.”
Ultimately, it was the Leave camp that won the day, a scenario that Wenger worries could have long-term repercussions on the strength of the Premier League.
“The players are going to see their salaries drop a little bit and the competition with Germany, for example, is going to be stronger,” Wenger told France Football [translated by ESPN].
“But that’s part of the risks of the profession and that worries me less.”
The boss does believe that the influx of TV money should initially cushion the blow.
“England has, all the same, a lot of resources in terms of finances. There’s leeway with the [TV] money that’s going to be brought in this year as well.
“But in my opinion it’s particularly in the long term that there are questions. The way in which England leaves Europe will dictate the future of the Premier League.
“If the league becomes less attractive, TV companies will spend less money, the revenues of clubs are going to decrease and the Premier League is going to suffer the consequences. That’s where the problem is.”
Without going full Donald Rumsfeld, there’s certainly a lot of known unknowns and plenty of unknown unknowns about the triggering of Article 50 and the subsequent Brexit. Nobody seems quite sure what the hell will happen or when.
Anyway, you can now go wild with your ‘quitting Europe early’ is so Arsenal gags…
Update: You can read the full transcript of his interview here.
Am I the only one who really doesn’t care about the strength of the Premier League?
In many ways I’d welcome going back to a time when teams were forced to develop more of their own young English talent than simply go out and pluck 11 multi-million pound stars.
It’d be much better for the national team (haha) and create more of a bond between players and fans if this were to be the way Brexit ultimately influenced the league.
Maybe, but if clubs are forced to spend all their income on English players then player salaries will go up even more.
Don’t forget England were just as crap in the 70s and 80s before we had foreign players and managers.
Why would salaries go up for English players? The argument I’m making that the Premiership would attract smaller TV deals in the long term, making all the clubs poorer. That would mean that clubs would have to cut spending; getting more from their youth academies would be the most sustainable model to build on. I would definitely make the case for that improving the national team. Take one example – Kieran Gibbs. Bloke was a perfectly decent fullback for us and we signed a slightly better one, which has stunted his development. Had we not had the funds to do… Read more »
Also you mustn’t interpret this as me saying “NO FOREIGNERS IN THE PREMIERSHIP EVER”, I love having Ozil and Sanchez in our team as much as the next supporter. I’m saying that if they were to be luxury purchases, rather than the status quo, and if that were the case for all sides, we’d still have a competitive league but full of players who grew up supporting their respective clubs who otherwise would be farmed out on loan.
We signed Monreal because Gibbs is far too prone to injury
And one day the talent level will drop so much in the EPL that it will become something like the Scottish league. Only the locals will watch while the world audience (and the money) will move on to something else. It happened to Italy after the 90’s and brexit might just be the thing to burst the EPL bubble. That’s the kind of thing Wenger doesn’t want.
Well said. All you stupid brexiters look at the scottish league and if that is what you want ‘your league’ to become. Brexit certainly is one step towards that direction.
One of the most alluring things about english football is the international nature to the league as well as the fan base. This is very worrying for all fans too.
I think one of the least alluring aspects of the premier league is the international fan base.
Cheers, as an international fan I really appreciate your view.
I don’t necessarily agree or disagree, but I think that’s exactly his point. Theoretically the global interest and money going away would help the clubs get back to their local roots, bringing back the glory days of the First Division, etc.
I don’t think it would work quite like that but I’m fairly certain the OP sees your scenario as a positive, not a negative
From an Australian gooner, and sorry to say lads i really couldnt give a toss about the strength of the english national team.
I know theres pride in that, just as we have with our country. But we get to see international matches once every few months? And a tournament every couple of years. The Arsenal is something we get to all enjoy in most cases twice a week and this club has a long & proud history of foreign players becoming club legends.
I don’t care about the England side. If little old Wales and Iceland can manage to out perform us with a considerably lower populations then we should be ashamed of ourselves. The PL is entertaining every week, England are dull as dishwater. It is this little englander mentality that brought about Brexit in the first place. If you can’t do your job better than someone from overseas that is your tough luck. Do better, work harder. The same is no different for football players. AW is right to be concerned about Brexit. In the space of a week any players… Read more »
The most valuable opinion I’ve heard in this year.. seriously thanks for people like you 🙂
Do better, work harder, get fucked over by the Tories and their cunty rich mates. bit like groundhog day really. Football is an escape, nothing more. Sorry, have to go to work today. Groundhogs rule. Leicester showed that.
I voted remain. I travel whenever I can, have a life rich in culture, am liberal minded and abhor racism or discrimination of any kind. But I would like to see more English players in the Arsenal team. Your view that that makes me a little Eglander is as narrow minded as the little Englanders themselves.
Danny I would be pleased to see more England players in the Arsenal side on merit not because we have to fulfil a quota. Cream should rise to the top and artificially trying to reduce competition for English players is not going to improve the England side. Players from overseas are willing to go and play in other leagues in order to improve, how many England players are there playing abroad? We now live in a global economy where we all have to compete with more people in all types of work. Competition should make us strive to do better… Read more »
Teams make great efforts (and expense) to develop their own players but the problem is that the talent pool is tiny as we have far too few qualified coaches in England.
When the FA invest in more coaches instead of their own expense accounts, only then will the level of English players improve sufficiently.
How will any of this effect his ability not to spend any money?
Good line, thumbs up from me, but actually the answer is ‘really badly’. He avoids spending money by signing up starlets like Fabregas and Belerin. As Blogs pointed out, this may not be possible in future.
Off Topic sorry – but does anyone know when TV release fixtures? I’m travelling to the City game on the 13th from Ireland and I don’t want to book anything yet until the fixtures are confirmed?
Buy some fucking players instead of talking about future hypotheticals! Man united are stealing a march on us, as are Man Shitty and Chelski. Stop talking and get that heavy wallet out.
We bought two players and triggered Vardy’s release clause. It’s not like the bloke is doing nothing. The transfer window opened 5 days ago.
I think people are concerned, myself included, based on past experience when we knew beyond doubt we needed certain positions strengthened, but they weren’t. Striker is one of them. Why he could not get a deal done before the transfer window opened is beyond me. If it means paying 10-15 million over the odds, who gives a rats ass? It’s the way of the world now. Chelsea just paid £33m for Batshuayi, someone who is probably worth half that. We will have to fork out £50-£60m to get the deal we want, such as a Higuain or Morata etc. I… Read more »
How is he pussyfooting around? He did trigger a release clause for Vardy and sign Xhaka. At least wait until the end of July before you start panicking
Its July now!
I wouldn’t be surprised to hear from you once August sets in asking everyone to wait until end of August or till the window shuts before we judge the man.
We have seen it happen before, and many fear a repeat. And the c*nt at Manure is mouthing off already. God damn it!
That’s right, we have never seen it happen before. Oh hold what about Ozil
How is he a cunt? He is telling it like it is. Arsene has failed for the last 10 years overall.
He triggered a release clause but he obviously didn’t do everything he could to sign Vardy. More money etc etc. He is just not aggressive enough.
Other players on the market, Higuain for example, He is not worth 60m, maybe 45m, but that extra 10 to 15m is a necessity because a top striker is a rare commodity. Of course he’s pussyfooting Around because he is yet to sign a striker. He is clearly not aggressive in the market which he had shown time and again.
Paying an amount that is double what you think is the worth of a footballer is insane.
would you spend 6 quid on a starbucks coffee?
would you spend 2 quid on a loaf of bread?
i mean hell, would you spend 2 rats arses on a tottenham season ticket?
Wenger is always going to look for value or bargains. he is not afraid to spend (See Xhaka, Ozil, Sanchez) he is afraid to waste.
he simply does not see the premium in denying an opponent the player.
i.e. Chelsea paid 16M premium to deny another club buy Batshuayi
If I needed bread and milk and there was no other shop open I would spend the money to get what i need. When you go to the airport, you pay 2 quid for a bottle of water even though the water costs 75p at the local supermarket. They know they can charge it because you can’t get out of the airport. It’s the way of the world.
Not sure id even spend 1 rats arse on a Tottenham season ticket
Oh, and we really bought one player for the first team because we brought in that nigerian kid and this japanese one for the future – not expecting them to slot straight in
I agree in principle Blogs but it is so Groundhog Day to keep reading about the done deals by manure and the other bunch that I’d just like to see a striker’s signature on a contract. I know the window has only just opened but I want to see Arsene prove the hyenas wrong
Be patient little one.
What 2 players – the young Japanese guy is hardly going to be a starter is he? You must clearly be an Arsene apologist if you feel I’m being harsh on him by asking why he hasn’t bought more players. Both Manchester clubs and Chelsea have managed to find players.
You are an idiot.
No need for abuse. Thumb down is sufficient.
Stop talking? The man’s literally not allowed to communicate verbally because that’s costing us players?
Talking is all he seems to be doing. Jeez what’s with the Wenger loving?
Does United spending lots of money scare you? Where were you for the last three seasons then?
Lol Wenger isn’t even allowed to talk, he has to spend every second of his waking day on signing new players, harsh!
The wealthiest league in the world won’t struggle.
Can’t wait til the entire world is genetically mixed so we can stop wasting time focusing on our differences as human beings and start to realise that we’re all the same.
What about religion? There will always be fighting.
Anyway, who really out of all the new signings for the so called big clubs is really going to make a difference? Zlatan? 34 yrs.. who? There has been no great transfers yet and there will not be. Even Zlatan is a shirt seller.
If everyone was like me we’d just chill
Zlatan is 35 in October, and I couldn’t see him score more than 10 goals including penalties, the PL is not a french league when whole PSG team played to set him up goals while he was taking a walk 90 minutes during every game, Mikihtaryan is good player but remebmer kagawa was even better than him and he struggled in the PL, that doesn’t mean he will be a bad player but I consider him above average and he is not a winger where murinho will play him and destroy him when he order him to play full back… Read more »
Butter and jam on toast, or just jam. There will always be divisions 😉
Butter and jam, all day long.
You idiot – jam only!
#ButterOut!
#Buttxit
Only 100% English speaking butter would do. No European jam for me and my household.
Jam without the toast? Freak! Burn him!!
even if we were all one race some would be darker and some would be uglier and others wealthier. Not to mention sexualities and sexes. What I am saying is if ever you want to make a mixed baby for the sake of world peace remember this quote ‘damned if you do, damned if you dont’
Damn
Arsenal and Spurs.
The world can never be united.
You don’t really think they’re just sitting back doing funk all do you?
“The players are going to see their salaries drop a bit” – our hearts bleed for them, the impoverished little cherubs.
Lmao….coats on!
In fact, one of my first reactions to Brexit (as an outsider) was ”well, that’s the Premier League fucked then”
This could benefit Arsenal in some ways this summer – with the pound losing value, it benefits the clubs who have income in multiple currencies (e.g. Champions League money in Euros) when buying from the continent – just like getting your money out for a holiday, a €50m Euro player will now cost £40m rather than £30m
As far as I know Arsenal do not have a cash reserve of Euros. We do all our business in pounds.
If they had any sense they would have exchanged a shitload of money into euros before the referendum. Most of the businesses that I deal with who have to do business with European countries did this to protect their businesses.
Wrong. I think Arsenal’s cash reserve is kept in Wenger’s bank account in Guilly, france and denominated in euros, pesos and italian lira. That is why we have had problems withdrawing the funds at short notice in the past because the italians wanted their lira back. My mate told me.
Although they ‘account’ in sterling, they’re likely to have accounts in Euros and US $ like every other internationally trading UK based company.
Should say “likely to have bank accounts”.
Unless the FA are willing to revamp their entire way of “doing football” then not even a EU-membership will help them from going below other leagues and nations.
The rather pathetic exploits of the English national team in recent tournaments shows you just the extreme lack of quality players and managers in the league.
Don’t you mean “the extreme lack of ENGLISH quality players and managers in the league.” ?
Now watch this become something of a cop out into not buying the players we need to compete.So predictable.
Yep toma that is what we all fear
Jesus Christ, can you please concentrate on Arsenal & buy some f…. good striker.
Post-Brexit the main leagues to benefit will be the MLS and Chinese Super League, as their respective currencies have both strengthened dramatically over the £ and to a slightly lesser extent the €. The big names drawn to Europe from all over the world will genuinely start to contemplate these leagues far more as the years go on, and whilst the Premier League will remain world renowned there’s no guarantee it will remain the largest financially, which could see certain TV deals shift focus to other nations, reducing the PL’s global appeal and audience, and thus the superstar recruitment we’ve… Read more »
Sorry, that was rather serious…
To counter,
How many ants do you need to rent a house?
Ten ants!
And how many ants do you need to sell the house?
Are you kidding? If any currency is unstable right now, it’s the Yuan with markets losing confidence both in their markets and government. The figures the Chinese govt is giving out is dodgy to say the least. The Yuan hasn’t increased w/ respect to the pound, it’s the latter that’s fallen dramatically. However, I agree with your point re the US dollar. Many of the posh investors I have talked to moved a large chunk of their assets to the US & specifically the NYSE. While this may strengthen their economy, it also will, unfortunately, help Man Utd FC since… Read more »
Whilst the Yuan did take a hit initially upon the Brexit so did many of the worlds nations/currencies as part of a temporary reaction to the global economic shockwaves it sent out. In the long term it’s widely regarded that China are one of the main nations likely to be least affected by the Brexit. So admittedly I was wrong to state that it had strengthened, my point should have stated it will remain in a strong position (with slight fluctuations such as the present) whilst the GDP will drop. Financial deals offered to top footballers from China will progressively… Read more »
which one of you is Johanne Djourou?
Dude, lets not turn this nasty.
i was only admiring the financial and business commentary
You lure us in with the compliments of ‘Djourou’, but when our backs are turned you’ll mutter ‘Senderos’ 😉
What you mean he was telling lies to strengthen his opinion. Sounds familiar with both the out and the in. Who would have thought another person that doesn’t really know much pretending they do.
Brilliant idea! Reform the EU! Why has no one ever thought of that before? Reality check: they have. The entire history of the European project is a series of failed reforms. We ended up with a top-down, de registe political construct that answers to no one, and which has now crippled economies all over Europe. Forget immigration, it makes no odds to me, I voted for a Britain that creates its own laws and has the ability to negotiate trade deals with the rest of the world. The choice on the ballot paper was between a European Britain and a… Read more »
We do create the vast majority of our own laws, we also created quite a large number of the EU laws – Human Rights Act? We have not done a terribly good job of engineering trade deals recently. We are less attractive as a trading partner outside of the EU but you crack on with your views buddy.
Hansard, the House of Commons library, confirms that 55-60% of our laws were dictated by Brussels. Yes, we created the Human Rights Act. That shows you that we don’t need the EU to protect human rights, Britain has historically led the way on a multitude of civil liberties and workers’ rights and can do so again. Of course we haven’t been good at negotiating trade deals recently, the EU prohibits us from doing so! In leaving, we can now negotiate bilateral trade deals without the interference of 27 other countries. And the number of countries already queuing up to negotiate… Read more »
ahahahahahahahahaha…. lmao @ the line “And the number of countries already queuing up to negotiate with the U.K”.
Who exactly is queuing up to have a trade deal with the UK presently? Any links to the news? In any case, i think the UK will be in a desperate position when negotiating from the current post-brexit position and the world knows it. Not an ideal position from which to get good deals out of trade negotiations. Invariably, one gets fantastically and eye-wateringly shafted.
Hansard does not confirm that, it documents any speeches made in the 2 chambers verbatim. I know this because I am mentioned in it. My dad (an MP of over 30 years) made a speech that included a reference to me getting on a bus to go and see Arsenal against Man Utd in the FA cup semi final in 1999. 13% of our laws are dictated by the EU – confirmed by an expert on the EU from Liverpool University. Not a huge amount in the grand scheme of things particularly when we engineered a lot of them. It… Read more »
So, the therapist is not merely an ordinary old whining fart. He is an old, whiny, LYING fart!
In a constantly moving economic environment I believe the EU should reform every 5 years to address current and forthcoming advances and issues. A constantly evolving body that moves with the times. Whilst it hasn’t done this I wholeheartedly believe we’d be worse off without what we’ve got, post Brexit hysteria in the markets, the current and increasing disrespect to hard working foreigners/’foreigners’, a lack of minimum wages and workers rights, I could list the many reasons but they’re plastered all over the internet. Could you honestly trust a Tory government with nobody keeping an eye over it? It’s incredibly… Read more »
Leave it out Jeremy
@GeneWildersCrazyDNA Your comment is scarily relevant to what happened yesterday and today. After years of campaigning for “leave”, Boris & Farage have literally ransacked this nation. Forcing the Prime Minister to leave (in a way) was one thing, but abandoning ship after creating a cluster**** situation points to a spineless, gutless rats who are supposed to lead our country. The Labour party is in arrears, the Conservative party PM is being ousted and on Twitter, another set of “experts” are calling for Piers Morgan to become the PM. How does the Premier League continue to shield and insulate itself from… Read more »
Piers Morgan for PM…? God I hope they were just pointing out his initials and not genuinely suggesting the greasiest man since Gregory Greasemaster should rule as Supreme Overlord. He’s so very, horribly, horrible. Back to less stomach-churning issues… Since the fallout from the Brexit the news is so gloomy, admittedly there is the odd bit of exaggerating (both ways) to sell news but listening to the actual quotes come out from those ‘in the know’ is scary. The bad news (national and global) outnumbers the good at a frightful ratio; £ continually dropping, the FTSE is a mess, BOE… Read more »
I think the worst fallout from this is how quickly the xenophobic ideas regarding “protection of our borders” galvanized the nation. As a labour supporter myself, I am astounded at how right-wing dissidents have almost come from nowhere. Our MP’s thought of Farage as a joke but it’s sad how foreigners are getting the blame for this. There’s been news (maybe publicity ones) of some ignorants telling people of Indian-descent, “When are you leaving? We’ve voted you out”! As for us strengthening via Russia, that’s going to be embarrasing for whoever is in charge of that. It was the mighty… Read more »
I too am Labour through and through (true Labour where everyone works together for one another, none of this ‘red tie Tories’ rubbish our party has often embedded in recent years), but even so I respect the differing political opinions of others as we’re all brought up in different ways, in different environments. But one thing I just can’t get my head round/sympathise with is society’s (and most of the media’s) sudden openness on hate with such little (well, no) justification. I used to feel proud to live in such a liberal country… There’s a theme in this nation, sadly,… Read more »
Funnily one of ‘BoJo’s’ main selling points to pursuade the UK away from the EU was that Turkey, who have poor Human Rights records/violations, was/is on the cusp of joining… Rewind just a few months/years and you can find a short film where he bangs on about how Turkey have the right to be in the EU. Youtube it, it’s kind of hilariously depressing, or depressingly hilarious. Then there’s Michael “this country is tired of experts” Gove who is now begging experts to help him find an economic plan to strengthen his chances of getting the PM job. They’ve all… Read more »
*retweets
I concur completely with your last point. Jeremy seemed so ambivalent about the issue from the start and I forget which MP came on GoodMorningBritain and said that many of them had no idea which side he was on. That’s really split the party up with everyone basically fending for themselves in terms of which way they went. I saw that and I thought it was tremendously hypocritical of him, since until we were in EU, I thought any country had veto power to deny a new country to join. So if we wanted, we could’ve just told that Turkey… Read more »
*Not hypocritical of Jeremy but of Boris
To sum up…
It’s “tata” for the old boys club on both sides of the Atlantic…or at least it appears as such, according to my tea leaves : )
Why are white immigrants called Ex pats and everyone else just plain old immigrants?
This must be the non story of the century. Effects zero. Didn’t Wenger start whining some years back when Brown upped the top rate of tax to 50% saying how disastrous this might be for keeping our precious little darlings papered ? He wants to see his homeland where the top rate is about 75%. If players wages did drop or even stop increasing hand over fist, in the utterly unreal way they have the last ten years, few of us are going to start crying about it. We are a club where a player – Walcott in case you… Read more »
so post brexit dismiss the bosman ruling sack all the agents and then let the players go back to when they met the manager and chairman and did it all nicely over a cup of english cha luvely eh. If only Carlsberg did tranfers like that! nothing will change in players coming and going from Europe or the world prices wont drop nor will agents fees so its buisiness as usual, buying a football player now has more rules, regs and clauses than ever, normally fees agreed first it all the other things that slow it down.
The issue here with Brexit may be the top end strikers will still be available to English PL teams and price may not be affected as much because they can secure permits.
Still the price will be affected regardless as the supply will diminish.
But the ones who have a harder time getting the work permits may be the biggest issue and it may affect some of the lower teams dropping the quality of the league.
This may trigger a buying spree now perhaps before the rules tip against the PL teams.
There’s plenty of uncertainty.
To be perfectly honest, the long-term viability of the premier league sweltering exorbitant bubble never really concerned me. This is a golden age for superstars and one of huge inequality and disillusionment from supporters. Brexit or no Brexit, it was never going to last. And Arsenal fans will carry on loving Arsenal even when the bubble bursts. Playing devil’s advocate and pretending that the EU will recover and the UK won’t, which is not at all guaranteed, and that Germany, Spain and to a lesser extent France and Italy supercede England in champions league — which for the former two… Read more »
Well said..
Speaking of human rights, the EU, along with the US and the mashup called NATO are putting a serious dent in the human rights of millions upon millions with their wars of aggression in the middle east…Good for England to get out of the EU imo, maybe they can lead the way forward into a much better future.
Brexit! Bexit! We got the country back… Now what do we do with it? Dunno
Have you tried turning it off and on again?
I’ve said it before on this site, but this post warrants it again: as a US gooner, I’m incredibly impressed with the civility and thoughtfulness of the political discussions when they do rarely occur here. In the US, a similar thread on an MLB, NFL, or NBA site would become a tire fire no later than Comment #2.