AC Milan are cooling their interest in Ivan Gazidis having grown frustrated at the time it’s taking to recruit the Arsenal CEO.
According to Corriere dello Sport, the Italian giants, who are now owned by American hedge fund Elliott Management, acknowledge the ‘road is increasingly steep’, in part because the Gunners have not yet put the South-African born law graduate on gardening leave.
Gazidis has been offered a hefty pay increase to move to the San Siro where he’d work alongside new directors Leonardo and Paolo Maldini to return the beleaguered Rossoneri to their glory days.
The53-year-old has thus far refused to speak about the speculation even though Arsenal released a statement earlier in the summer paying lip service to the situation.
After years playing second fiddle to Arsene Wenger at the Emirates, 2018 has seen Gazidis come to the fore. He appointed Sven Mislintat as head of recruitment in late 2017, brought in Raul Sanllehi as the club’s de facto director of football, recruited Unai Emery as head coach in May and appears to have the backing of majority shareholder Stan Kroenke.
The timing of this new opportunity must be making life complicated for all concerned. Indeed, The Times claimed last week that Arsenal’s senior management team are increasingly annoyed by the lack of clarity and want a resolution either way, as soon as possible.
There have been rumours that Kroenke’s son Josh, promoted to vice chairman of KSE and KSE UK in April, could assume more responsibility if Gazidis leaves.
Money, money, money. There is too much in football and it affects agents, directors and players.
Would much prefer to see them acting for the love of the sport and Arsenal in particular.
Yeah because thats exactly what senior executives of anything do it for. Love.
Fact is that the money tops out at some point.
In all our jobs, if the money was a little higher in a new one, but we enjoyed what we’re doing, surely you stay?
That’s why you’re not a senior executive and they are…
AC Milan’s revenue is less than half Arsenal’s. I doubt he is getting a big raise and is more likely trying to get his Arsenal pay higher.
Think about what you’re saying though. If we reduce the pool of people we’re willing to hire, executives or players, to only people who really love Arsenal or even football and aren’t motivated primarily by money…well, we’re going to miss out on a lot of really talented people. I don’t think the trade off is worth it. In an ideal world, sure, probably not this one. Certainly not in top flight football.
Gazidis is paid a fortune by most measures, most 1st team players are paid even more. If he wants to go off to Milan for the money let him go, hope he fails and realises that anything extra he was paid isn’t worth it and he’s lost out. I understand that money is important but would rather have someone like Guendouzi, who loves the club. If money drives everything then we will have more Sanchezes moving to richer rivals for more cash and losing any chance of being an Arsenal legend. Charlie George used to go to matches on the… Read more »
I highly doubt getting paid millions more will leave him feeling that he has somehow missed out. Even if arsenal become legendary unbeatables again. He is not on the pitch. He isnt the manager. He is an executive of a business and will have a much more distant relationship to on pitch emotion and success. Money wins here. Every time.
I’m singing ABBA now!!!
Here here, well said!
Sorry Russ but it’s “hear hear” as in “I hear you”.
Christ not Stan’s dipshit son! He’ll gouge the place worse than his dad.
Hang about until we get back into the champions league Ivan
Gazides wants to go?
Took him 20 years to sack Venga, that joke of a managah. I’d have sacked Gazides for this alone! If he wants to go, good bloody riddance! Hope AC Milan fans will appreciate 20 years of Gattuso!
Because it was such a hideous 20 years, right?
“Venga” gave us a pretty exceptional 10-14 year period. Gazidis came later and i couldn’t care less if he stays or goes.
So what are you saying, you want Venga back?
Sack Hyundai and hire Venga, is that what you’re sayin?
Not at all, just correcting your inaccurate analysis. “Venga” wasn’t, by any stretch of the most creative imagination, a “joke of a managah”. He didn’t do anything to deserve being fired/moved on for his first 15 years in charge and Gazidis hasn’t even been at the club for 20 years, much less trying to fire “venger” for the very same length of time…. or maybe he was covertly attempting it before he even got the job?
“He didn’t do anything to deserve being fired/moved on for his first 15 years in charge” Oh really? How about back in 2008, when financial doping was just getting started, and just after Thierry had left for Spain, when Venga refuse the chance to manage the likes of R.Madrid and Bayern? He decided to stay with only the fifth richest club in England, having to regularly pick the likes of Bendtner, Denilson and Eboue. Wasn’t such a demonstration of lack in personal ambition (and a sign of things to come; only 3 FA cups, Charity Shields and 4th place ‘trophies’… Read more »
Who the hell is Hyundai and why can’t you spell Wenger?!
Just to be clear, if you were running an organisation and one of your employees was doing very well, and bigger companies came around enticing him with riches and whatnot, and he didn’t leave because he loved the company and wanted to help it grow instead of moving to a bigger company and earning more money and plaudits…you would fire that person for not showing personal ambition?
You’re a genius, I want you to run my life.
Where are we really heading as a club?
What are our targets?
Make profit, and Pay off Stan’s Purchase, this is likely the extent of our ambition.
He’s been at Arsenal a long time at this point and his stock is as high as it’s ever been – transitioning Arsenal from Wenger runs everything to a modern structure was a massive undertaking regardless of how one feels about him. If he wants a new challenge, try a new culture then you can’t blame him for leaving. Or even if it’s just he gets paid quite a bit more to go there- yes I get that he makes a lot of money but if you got offered 50% more to essentially do the same job most would take… Read more »
Don’t know if his stock is high or not but I would wait and see how all these appointments he made work together. So far, it seems like the head coach doesn’t fancy the signings made by the transfer guy. Also, the contract guys can’t tie down Ramsey to a new deal and youth players are looking for the way out. If Gazidis goes to Milan and things unravel in a few months, who will take the blame for the “catalyst for change” policy?
So while Gazidas deserves some knocks for hiding behind Wenger when things weren’t going well – Wenger left an absolute mess to clean up. He let a huge number of important players run down their contracts- including Ramsey. The only real knock right now on the transfer team when it comes to Ramsey is that they didn’t sell him this summer when it became obvious he doesn’t want to sign a new deal. Youth players leaving happens all the time – the vast majority of these players will never make the grade & I would point out we were able… Read more »
If you really believe Wenger was totally responsible for the mess than you are really very naive. You can see by the penny pinching signings in the summer that his hands were tied and Gazidis was the main cause. He’s not interested at all in success on the pitch but just keeping the club in profit.
Martin – for all complaining about penny pinching you do realize that Arsenal has the 4th highest wage bill in the PL on average at least from 2013-2017. We spent a lot of money on wages – we just massively overpaid squad players relative to other clubs = one of the major reasons we have so much trouble moving on totally unwanted players like Ospina. Wenger by all accounts micromanaged the entire footballing operation and thus should receive both the credit and the blame.
Gazidis is the boss of all, marketing and playing.
He should have given Wenger the support he needed (see the David Dein era) and that Gazidis has given Emery and we would have done much better.
So failing on the playing side is also ultimately Ivan’s fault.
Wenger had a direct line to Kroenke. The one thing Gazidas was guilty of firing Wenger years ago when it became clear he could no longer cut it at the top. That said it wasn’t really his decision to keep or fire Wenger. Let’s see how Gazidas’ appointments work out but it’s way too early to start calling them a failure.
*was guilty of not firing Wenger*
I call BS Xhaka, Özil, Auba, Laca, Mustafi, all high end deals shows backing! Love Wenger to bits but no excuse getting Xhaka over Kante. We were 2nd they were 10th that season. Can’t blame Ivan for the personnel gotten.
Wenger did a lot of great things for the club but that shouldn’t hide the fact that he was sacked for a reason. He spent money, but not well & we had the same mental failings year after year. He once was a great manager but time had caught up with him and he had reached a point where he was a best a middle of the PL manager. We should appreciate all he did for the club, but let’s not pretend either like he went out like Ferguson or Zidane either.
Spot on!
For me, if Josh were to step up I would be angry as hell. Who is he? What are his links in football? What could he do better than Gazidis? I know Gazidis seems impotent at times but we could do without the Kroenke family succession as this would only harm the club with his lack of experience.
Since you admittedly don’t know anything about Josh Kroenke, why would you be “mad as hell?” Fear, ignorance, etc.
Realistically, Gazidis is a better choice, that’s true. After all, he’s presided over such a run of success by Arsenal, so by all means keep him. (see that; it makes no sense.)
Stability at a football club is vastly underrated, however, and Gazidis to leave now would probably be unsettling in bad way.
Nepotism is rarely a good thing…
I’ll vote Mad Jens for the CEO. That would be fun.
Today is World Suicide Prevention day.
So let’s all be nice to people. Everyone is fighting a battle out there.
Good.
Shame really, was looking forward to seeing the back of the bullshitting cunt.
I’m probably in the minority, but I hope he stays. He’s done a pretty good job at managing the transition on and off the pitch, and if the new shirt sponsor deal comes through he’ii have done a good job with the financials too. I know that Bloggs has always said that he hid behind Wenger, and maybe he did, and probably had to say some things he didn’t really believe, that’s politics sometimes, but nobody can deny that he was making things happen behind the scenes. Maybe he feels he’s done his bit and wants to move on, but… Read more »