Arsenal have confirmed that Ivan Gazidis will leave the club at the end of October to take up the CEO position at AC Milan.
In his place, Vinai Venkatesham and Raul Sanllehi have been promoted becoming the Gunners Managing Director and Head of Football respectively.
The former had held the Chief Commercial Operator title, while the Spaniard, who only joined the club at the turn of the year, was the club’s Head of Football Operations; a role that effectively amounted to being our Director of Football.
Interestingly, it’s Josh Kroenke, son of Stan, who has taken on the duty of explaining the restructuring. A sign of things to come perhaps?
In a statement on the club’s official website the 38-year-old states: “It has been a pleasure working with Ivan.
We will miss the wisdom, insight, and energy he brought to our club on a daily basis over the past decade.
We are confident we have outstanding people in Raul and Vinai, and we look forward to working with them and coach Unai Emery to continue to move the club forward on and off the pitch.”
Chairman Sir Chips Keswick, whose days may also be numbered, added: “Ivan has led Arsenal with skill and dedication and leaves us in a strong position. The club has been transformed and he has recruited talented people, such as Raul, Vinai and of course Unai Emery, who will take us to future success.”
A lot of responsibility now lands on the shoulders of Vinai and Raul, but they seem excited by the challenge.
Vinai said: “From the day I joined Arsenal I have always considered it a privilege to serve this great football club, so it’s an honour to take up the position of managing director and lead the club alongside Raul. Together we will work tirelessly with the extraordinary staff we have at Arsenal to respect and enhance our unique history, heritage and values; with the overall objective to bring success to our millions of fans all around the world and make them proud of their club. I thank Stan and Josh Kroenke and the rest of the board for their trust in me, and Ivan for all the support he has given me since I joined the club in 2010.”
Raul added: “Although I joined Arsenal just months ago, I’ve felt embraced by this great club and part of its family from the first day. I will do everything possible to maintain our strong values which will be as fundamental to our future as they have been in our past. Vinai and I will need everyone’s help, to do everything right and secure the success everyone connected to Arsenal wants. I sincerely thank Arsenal’s board for their trust in us and thank Ivan for bringing me to this great club, and for consistently supporting me every day, in every way. It’s with overwhelming pride and utmost excitement that I face this new opportunity.”
Good luck to them both. Ciao Ivan.
Ok, good he has gone.
Anyone have background on Vinai and how good he is? Let’s hope he is and the future is bright for us.
He’s the dickhead who’s NOT expanded our commercial interests beyond the average. He’s done absolutely nothing imaginative to increase our revenue. And it’s revenue that’s constantly holding us back. Basically, it’s jobs for the boys with everyone scurrying around shoring up their own medieval fiefdoms. I can’t say how the Raul Sanllehi promotion will turn out, but for those wanting to see our commercial side rise beyond expectations and start resembling the likes of the other richer clubs should be disappointed. If Venkatesham was doing a stellar job where he was then that’s where he should stay, at least for… Read more »
I have no opinion yet on whether this is a good or bad choice. But it’s ridiculous to blame our performances on the fact that we’ve “done nothing imaginative to increase our revenue and it’s revenue that’s constantly holding us back.” A better shirt contract, or a contract for “official crisp partner for New Zealand,” is not the problem. Here’s an imaginative way to increase our revenue: be bought by the stupendously rich ruling family of a middle eastern country or an almost-equally rich Russian who, in both cases, have non-football reasons (and don’t care about the piddly millions involved)… Read more »
The dead are always so pessimistic
You know nothing, HansRott.
Do you know how immensely difficult it is to actually know nothing?
He’s not a natural winger
See this thread, has explained various roles of Vinai.
Check out @ChrisWheatley_’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/ChrisWheatley_/status/1041982459783589891?s=09
All we need to do now is work out what’s happening with Ramsey and we can focus entirely on the football
We are a year too late. He should have been sold before the start of the season and adequately replaced.
If he leaves on a free, that’s a big hit on our shoe stringish budget to replace.
Call me crazy for wanting a non committed player sold but I’ll call you crazy in nine months when you call an ex player Judas to nurse your heartbreak.
I wonder why fans disturb themselves about a budget when the Kroenkes splashed half a billion pounds to own the club. From then on, any mistake is their loss not the club’s.
Goodbye and thanks for your time. Apart from replacing Wenger with a new manager, I doubt he did anything of note.
Yeah fuck off ivan, don’t bang the door on your way out.
hahaha now I have the image of Ivan humping the door to the stadium, thanks
He moved to Milan as the doors are sexier
Vinai seems to have a lot of experience on the commercial side so I suspect he will be responsible for bringing in the deals while Raul does the more football focused stuff. Makes a lot of sense and I always felt that Gazidis may have structured himself out of a job in the first place a few months ago and he was never a specialist on the commercial or football side. The other question is whether during Josh Kroenke’s visits that it was him or proposed the restructure with Gazidis to execute the plan, which in turn made Gazidis think,… Read more »
Good thinking…it would make sense of why Ivan appears to be running away when he’s got everything he wanted after all these years.
Thank you for your contribution to the Arsenal, Ivan, and best wishes for your future.
Yawn….
From reading the reaction it seems that fans are happy Gazidis is going. Personally I think he did some very good and some not so good things at the club. In his statement he rightly mentions the upgraded facilities, commercial growth and structural changes but he was very handsomely rewarded for those on top of an excessive bonus which didn’t reflect the clubs poor finishing positions in the league recently. I think it’s true that he never developed a real relationship with the fans, ever the politician, Gazidis was used as a shield for Wenger in fan forums when we… Read more »
Oh well at least it wasn’t josh Kroenke who took over. Catchya Gazidis and thanks for…. a select few decent signings? Our best players going to rivals? You leaving?
Which of our best players went to rivals apart from perhaps Sanchez but in his place Mkhitaryan has worked out well
Van Persie, nasri, clichy, sagna, oxlade chamberlain, giroud?
Interesting analysis on the impact of Ivan to the club.
https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/1032534955342086146
The last comment says it all in a nutshell:
“From a financial perspective Ivan Gazidis has not been a bad chief executive at #AFC, just not especially good. Whether his track record merits Milan’s eager pursuit is debatable. If he does leave Arsenal, the club should be able to find a replacement at least as capable.”
So to sum up Gazidis was mediocre to complete shite
Here is our new Tunnel Area greeter! Congratulations! May your tunnel area always be most tunnelly!
Not interested..the thing to focus on now what is on earth happening to Aubameyang??
Vinai and Unai sounds like a comedy duo. I love it!
Or like that meme, “Name a more iconic duo than Vinai and Unai… I’ll wait”
It always looked like the replacement was going to be internal, that Arsenal were waiting for Ivan to move, buying out the public shares and let Josh Kronke control the club. So for me, it’s a worry that J Kronke is unproven, I maybe wrong. However, till we get to the start of next season, i.e. transfer window performance, this season’s outcome in the various competitions and reaction from the board, we can’t judge Josh Kronke. I had hoped Wenger would return to the club at thr boardroom. However with all these changes, I’m not sure if they would want… Read more »
Ivan the Mediocre?
Who needs Ivan when we have Vinai and Raul.