Arsenal have announced they are to seek 55 redundancies as the financial impact of the Covid-19 crisis starts to really take a bite.
A statement this afternoon, co-signed by Head of Football Raul Sanllehi, and Managing Director Vinai Venkatesham, says that the loss of revenue from match day income, broadcasting, commercial activity has left them with no choice but to propose layoffs.
They insist that despite restructuring the stadium debt, as well as tightening spending at all levels, job losses are inevitable.
The statement, in part, reads:
Over recent years we have consistently invested in additional staff to take the club forward but with the expected reduction of income in mind, it is now clear that we must reduce our costs further to ensure we are operating in a sustainable and responsible way, and to enable us to continue to invest in the team.
Our aim has been to protect the jobs and base salaries of our people for as long as we possibly can. Unfortunately, we have now come to the point where we are proposing 55 redundancies.
We do not make these proposals lightly and have looked at every aspect of the club and our expenditure before reaching this point. We are now entering the required 30-day consultation period on these proposals.
We know this is upsetting and difficult for our dedicated staff and our focus is on managing this as sensitively as possible.
These proposed changes are ultimately about ensuring we take this great football club forward, creating the right organisation for a post-Covid world, and ensuring we have the resources to return to competing effectively at the top of the game here and in Europe.
You can read the full statement here.
Arsenal, it’s worth remembering, are owned by a billionaire whose net worth is estimated to be in the region of $8bn, and for whom covering the salaries of 55 employees would barely be a drop in the vast ocean of his fortune – even with the LA stadium project ongoing.
KSE also pushed through pay cuts on the playing squad almost as soon as the pandemic started, and to this date we remain the only Premier League to have implemented such measures.
It’s a real shame that 55 ‘ordinary’ people are going to lose their jobs during this incredibly difficult time, and it’s shameful that the ownership – who are willing to sanction significant outlays on players and agents because of their cosy relationships with club executives – are allowing this to happen.
Trying to frame the relatively trifling savings these job cuts will have as something which will allow us to invest is the team isn’t going to wash with any fan with a modicum of common sense.
We have to let 55 people go so we can pay a month of Willian’s wages? That’s not it.
Best of luck to everyone who might be affected.
55 jobs at, let’s say an average £50,000 a year, is £2.75m.
When you consider some of the deals we’ve sanctioned for players, and the fees paid to them and certain agents, it’s shameful the club see fit to let 55 hard-working people lose their jobs at this moment in time. https://t.co/fIEJNFvJZg
— arseblog (@arseblog) August 5, 2020
Unbelievable
Kroenkes ruining the club I love
I ordered the new shirt today after telling myself I wouldn’t support the KSE commercial revenue stream anymore to protest Kroenke’s catastrophic ownership. I feel like a right idiot after this news.
Take it back for a refund. We cannot – as fans – continue to invest in this rotten ownership. If Adidas are being hit in the pocket, they’ll pull the kit deal – thereby affecting Kronke in the pocket (the only place he feels pain).
Boycotting matches and merch will just see more people unemployed.
It’s all just a bit silly really isn’t it. I’m not going out of my way to defend Ozil, but to my understanding he refused to take the pay cut because he wasn’t convinced what the money was going to be used for — fast forward a few months and we’re letting 55 people go. He probably feels a bit vindicated here and Arteta / the rest of the squad have been sold on a bs promise of no job cuts. I’d have a hard time coming up with stuff like this as fiction!!
Perhaps if they hadn’t taken the pay cut 200 people would have lost their jobs?
It is not Kroenke’s decision. People running the club for him have to achieve financial figures. Companies that do layoffs still pay millions to CEOs and shareholders so this is nothing new. I am not defending it. I am even a socialist. Whenever I talk about inflation in football and wanting the financial system in football to collapse so that Messi and Ronaldo earning 50K a week becomes the reference, people disagree. To those who reply what about movie stars, that would be like 250K max paid to them for a movie.
It is 100% Kroenke’s decision and direction that this is happening
I’m never one to back petitions and the like given that I think they tend to fall on entirely deaf ears, but surely we as a fan base must do something.
Given how wide reaching this blog is, maybe we could at least shine some bad PR on it. I pay for two season tickets and this sort of thing makes me want to tell them to fuck off. I know there are objectively far worse things in the world happening, but this does feel rather close to home. Whack something on the Blog tomorrow, Blogs!
The one at the end of last season certainly was heard by Josh. Sadly the resulting money wasn’t best spent in some cases.
There are questions to be asked. This could be a very formal letter from a couple of journalists. Community should be workig both ways.
Kroenke’s just spent £180m+ paying off the stadium debt Gazidis and Wenger alluded to have already paid off several years ago.
How much do you think is a reasonable amount for him to put in? Everyone has a limit surely, maybe he’s reached his?
When you say ‘paid off’ you realise he simply loaned us the money to pay it off so we can pay him back the money at a lower interest rate than we were currently paying. Meaning, he has effectively taken the opportunity to legitimately take money directly from the club with, again, no questions asked.
That not what he’s done, he has incurred a £40m surcharge to free up funds and lengthen the terms of repayment.
He may never ask for it back
He didn’t pay off the debt he restructured it. Basically instead owing the money to the bank (or who ever underwrote the debt) now Arsenal owes it to him and pay interest to him.
It’s not 100% paid and gone from the club. They are restructured, Arsenal FC still owns this debt to Kroenke. See this post by the blog : https://arseblog.news/2020/07/report-kroenke-restructures-arsenal-debt-to-ease-short-term-financial-pressure/
Still no direct penny has been spent by this yank parasite.
The bonds have been paid for and the money is now owed to him in a time frame that suits him, which may be never.
You are optimistic saying he may never ask for the money back. KSE is the type to move a team from a city to another just because it makes them more money (NFL Rams from St-Loui to LA). The only thing he cares about is money, I highly doubt he will just forget about money Arsenal owes.
The Rams played in LA before they moved to St Louis so another way of looking at it is Stan returned them to LA
As the owner he has the ability to turn the loan into to equity, much the same way Abramovich has done at Chelsea
Unfortunately today’s sports business environment is not healthy. So it’s a business decision. Hope the new business model can maintain the momentum Arteta started. Let’s see what business we do in this transfer window.
We’re supposed to be better than this. I dont know if we are anymore.
Explain to me again how this is worse than an Eastern European oligarch or a Middle Eastern oil magnate.
We turn our noses up at perceived “immoral” ownership and then end up with this guy. A man who has done nothing for the surrounding area, nothing for the club and nothing for the fans.
Bring back Usmanov!
Say what you like about Abramovich but i miss seeing him squirm in his seat,thats an owner who cares it’s like he sees chelsea as an extension of himself and always looking to improve.
Abramovich doesn’t give 2 f**ks.
Is Kroenke an asshat? Definitely. But we’re just as much to blame. We sit here wanting new signing and to compete with the mega clubs, but to do that players much be paid mega-million dollar contracts that in many cases go beyond what the game generates itself (the farce that is FFP). Here 55 people go out of work, so we can see our team (possibly) improve next year through mega investment. What do we do about it? Nothing we continue to watch the game. A game that is dirty. A game that mirrors a dirty, dirty capitalist world. I… Read more »
Yeah, and every time we buy from Amazon we are condoning their tax dodges. And every time we vote for a politician who lies it’s our fault for voting for them. And every time we buy petrol it’s Iraqi civilians blood on our hands.
Or maybe we are honest, decent people who are just trying to get some enjoyment and pleasure out of a world that is falling apart around us. And it’s the greedy, sociopathic pricks at the top who need to look at their behaviour and make changes.
Jesus, talk about Stockholm syndrome.
the sociopathic pricks have us by the balls
?
Or maybe it’s a bit of both
Provide me with an alternative that isn’t moving to Bhutan and becoming a forest person and I’ll take more responsibility for all the corporate greed and corruption.
But when our glorious leaders go to private islands to fuck kids, I’ll probably assume the system is rotten from the top down and not the other way round.
Cuba sounds up your street
Buy (more) from local stores. Vote for people you believe will not lie (as much) and call them out if they do. Ride a bike (more).
We have many choices everyday, and most are not all or nothing. Same can be said for the club.
Ok, so spend twice as much on shopping when I’m already living paycheque to paycheque. Vote for a non existent politician. And cycle my kids the 8 miles down a duel carriageway to school. Thanks man! Problem solved. I can feel the world healing as I type this.
South Asia has had enough of British people feeling entitled to move in on a whim don’t ya think?
I don’t know your economic situation, or how you currently live your life, so I can’t comment You don’t need to convince me that billionaires and the vast majority of ruling elite are swine. And to an extent, we live our lives and consume on their terms. I know that to get by on low or middle income we almost cannot avoid contributing to damaging industries and behaviours and playing their game But it’s obviously not a binary choice between ‘become a forest person’ vs being an uncaring pos. Using ‘the system’ as an excuse to go fuck it, drive… Read more »
Well said, Johnny. None of us like lining Kroenke’s pockets, but I’ll be damned if I let that toupee wearing howdy doody cunt stop me from watching my club, buying it’s merchandise and enjoying my life.
Capitalism? What u talk about is human nature. Want a socialist system, just watch the Govt do the same thing. At least under capitalism there’s no gulag and everyone has enough to eat.
Go jerk off to Jordan Peterson.
Why am I not surprised?
Welcome to America. If your job isn’t demonstrably contributing to profit, you’re out.
Kroenke is a useless American billionaire, but the super-wealthy Conservative leadership class in this country has been an abject failure as well.
They’re enacting disaster capitalism in the UK while in Germany clubs are preparing to welcome fans back into stadiums when the season starts next month.
If we’re gonna start a hate campaign against Willian and football agents, let’s save some fire for them too.
Shame that pre-requisite doesn’t apply to the President…
Don’t agree with the tone of this article, or the comments. Arsenal is a business and I am proud that is run as such, and not a rich billionaire’s plaything. Why would you keep on 55 staff (that more than likely work in bars, food outlets and on tours and stuff), when there is going to be nobody in the stadium for probably the entirety of the coming season. Simple business decision, and it probably is those staff who are being made redundant. Any excuse to hate Kroenke from you all, the man’s a businessman running a business and I… Read more »
Yeah, I’m sure you’d be saying the same thing if it was your job being flushed down the shitter. Not.
Meanwhile Ozil is hiding in his beloved Turkey on £350 k a week. As an Arsenal supporting Socialist and a season ticket holder since 1976 I feel disgusted by these redundancies
On Saturday I was proud to be an Arsenal fan, as of today???
Don’t blame Ozil for this.
This is on the owners. And I say that as someone who thinks it’s time for Ozil to go.
I’m sick to the core of my being of the whole Ozil saga, but his decision not to subsidize a billionaire was spot on.
Billionaires are not your friends.
Fuck Stan Kroenke. Fuck his cunt son, fuck his cunt wife, fuck his cunt lackeys who signed this shit.
Fuck off, you fucking cunts.
So what are you saying exactly?
seems that a significant chunk of the scouting network is among the 55. If they are being moved on to be replaced by people perceived to be better, then fine… but from what I understand Cagigao, for example, is well respected in his field. A shift away from scouting for bargains and an increased reliance on agents with all their fees in the name of cost saving seems bonkers and short sighted beyond belief.
If they got rid of a certain useless German player then 4 months of his wages would pay those staff for a whole year, who are probably doing a hell of a lot more productive work around there than he is.
Why the hate? Was he the one who gave himself the contract? No. Then why blaming him for the sack of the 55 staffs to be sack?
Ozil simply asked a question which needs answers and arsenal aren’t providing the answer to his question.
Well put. As much as we’d all love for him to pay everyone’s wages, remember he’s facing massive losses on multiple fronts.
Pretty sure that most match day staff are contracted in. They aren’t employees of the club and therefore that is not a good enough excuse for this decision.
I doubt Caggio is serving pints at the bar on match days.
This decision smells of another business using COVID-19 as an excuse to streamline things as much as possible.
Clearly not giving two fucks about the human cost of letting people go during a global pandemic.
During lockdown I called out some people for making vacant statements such as ‘lives matter, not football’ or something along those lines. I got downvoted and called insensitive because I guess it wasn’t a trendy thing to say at the time. Well today we realise that football does matter beyond the fans and the players. It matters to 55 people who have lost their livelihoods. And let me tell you, as someone who also lost my job (which I loved), the mental stress of finding another one even remotely comparable when competing for very few vacancies and going up against… Read more »
Shameful but sadly unsurprising from Stan.
You left an “a” out of stan
You mean an “i”.
Our players agreed to a 12.5% pay cut that was reduced to 7.5% if we qualify for Europa. It seems like there’s an opportunity for them to demonstrate they aren’t JUST driven by money and use that 5% to safeguard the jobs lost. That would be a touch of class. It’s not their responsibility and they shouldn’t have to do it but it’d be great to see…
Wasn’t the money they took from the pay cut supposed to protect ‘ordinary’ jobs and lives?
Do you actually think that a 12.5% (half of that now after the FA Cup win)can cover the costs of having no fans in a stadium for half a season (and that’s being generous considering things don’t look like they’ll change any time soon)? Nope. No chance. Arsenal is set to make a 120million£ loss if this continues. An owner throwing money into a business is not an option or of any sorts of financial intelligence.
I think the point is that these salaries are a drop in the ocean when they are thinking of hiring Coutinho with his salary and agent fees.
The problem is that many of the 55 employees are unlikely to have a significant positive impact on short term financial performance where as a Coutinho he’s the potential to improve finance e.g. Shirt sales, sponsorship, league position (higher prize money).
Ethically yes its not ideal, from a business point of view there is logic behind the move. Plus it’s not like those 55 employees are low earnerning staff (E.g. Scouts).
Billionaires get to be billionaires by not caring about the effects of their financial decisions on ordinary people. The very same ordinary people who work so hard to make them their profits. It’s disgusting whenever one of these greedy buggers decides to prioritise profits over decency, no less so in football.
Shameful for the club.
This is unacceptable. And in the next few days they’ll line Kia’s pockets with multiples of what they’ll save here with his payment for “facilitating” the inevitable Willian move.
This is exactly what’s making me feel sick about all this, we’ll bung a quick 5 million to facilitate a deal for a player we probably don’t want or need and line the pockets of Kia and probably a backhander for Raul, yet we can’t be arsed to pay 55 peoples wages.
The Kronkbastard acting like the Kronkbastard he is.
I’d be amazed if theses employees were earning £50,000 a year.
Kroenke out.
Going on Arseblog’s calculations, that figure is almost exactly the 12.5% pay cut Ozil didn’t take
Yep – was just thinking he should offer to put a paltry 30k of his 350k per week into the pot. Would probably save half those jobs at least!
I think this is the club publicly pressurising those 3 players that didn’t take the pay cut into doing so, that’s just the feeling i get
If so, that’s an a**hole thing for the club to do. If my boss have to fire me, at least tell me straight to my face. Do not pass the buck and shift responsibility by saying, I have to let go of you because your colleague refuse to take the pay cut.
Ozil simply asked what the paycut was for, specifically to see if it would be used for purposes like protecting jobs, he even indicated he would be willing to take more. Kroenke’s true colours are indeed right there for everybody to see. Not a cent comes from his pocket. Meanwhile Ozil will keep paying for kid’s surgeries,feeding homeless refugees and always reserving 1/3 of his tickets for charity like children fighting cancer . Kroenke has only ever made 2 donations on record, one to a hurricane fund presumably in his local area and one to Trump’s inauguration campaign. Stan and… Read more »
I’m not in the business of good guys vs bad guys, and maybe that’s exactly were the world is going wrong.
Whether you like it or not, Arsenal and Kroenke are not the same thing however you may wish to frame it.
I’m not judging Ozil, i’m merely pointing out that these figures have, to my eyes, a coincidental ring to them.
You are building a legend around Ozil now. The guy who takes from the rich to give to the poor. He negotiates his contracts with this in mind, right? He is so fair that he refused to take a paycut at a time football was generating zero revenue.
Why dont you do a bit of googling and find out for yourself all the charity work he does. According to Charles Watts he does loads more that’s not known about too but spends millions every year. As soon as I heard about the paycut it sounded absolutely dodgy and unethical. I thought the players should refuse it as I have formed my opinion of KSE and the club hierarchy and was instantly suspicious. I also knew Stan was incredibly wealthy. When I found out Ozil had refused it I was delighted as it meant more money go towards taxes… Read more »
Zero revenue???? You have heard about the TV deal, stadium naming rights and shirt sponsorship revenue streams right?
Arsenal is far from having zero income, even during COVID-19.
to be fair, it seems most footballers in englands big clubs took exactly 0% paycut. Ozil in his defence still donates a lot of his income for the good charitable work. He does plenty of good with his income, so dont be too quick to run the fella down.
Yeah kroenke makes ozil look good. Gooners fucked both ways.
Here’s the thing – somebody had to pay for this. It was either going to have to be the millionaire players or try billionaire owner.
I don’t see why millionaire employees should be bailing out their billionaire employer.
Fuck the Kroenkes.
Arsenal is the employer, not Kroenke. Kroenke has repaid the stadium bonds freeing up £35m a year, the players have taken a pay cut of approximately £25m a year and it’s still not enough to cover the losses. Gate receipts account for £100m a year of Arsenal’s revenue, lets say Covid has cost us a quarter of that this season and at least another 50% next, that’s a £75m shortfall. The clubs are also having to repay TV money to Sky which is coming out of future fees. The loses are huge and it’s completely unrealistic or even incumbent on… Read more »
“Arsenal” is not a person, I don’t expect “Arsenal” to make moral decisions. The issue with capitalism is that capitalists don’t make moral choices either, that’s a large part of how they’ve become richer then the rest of us. Kroenke owns Arsenal. He chose to do so. He benefits financially when Arsenal does well, but when things go badly, the burden should be borne by the non-playing staff? Fuck that. I don’t give a shit who owns Arsenal. If the losses are too huge and keeping the non-playing staff on the books is too expensive for Kroenke, fine, he can… Read more »
Everything you say is wrong. Kroenke has just spent/borrowed £180m to pay off the stadium loans and save the club £35m a year in repayments. So it’s quite clear he has made a substantial effort, it’s clearly not enough to cover the loses, and unfortunately there has to be job loses to make the shortfall. We also have to remember that we have FFP to comply with, something the club and specifically Wenger lobbied for for years Capitalism is the engine of advancement and reason why we live in comfort. Cuba, North Korea and Venezuela are places to go visit… Read more »
Speak for yourself, I don’t live in comfort.
Kroenke’s “engine for advancement” was marrying a Walmart heiress. Capitalism ensures people like him never have to face the consequences of either their bad decisions or of wider economic shocks – all “losses” are shifted lower down, to the people who actually work for a living.
What Kroenke did was give HIMSELF a loan so that HE could save some money down the line.
And unless I’m mistaken, he loaned Arsenal said money with interest, to be paid, again, to himself.
Engine for advancement indeed.
Amen John C. People are here are so sentimental that they forgot Arsenal together with many other football clubs are badly affected by the financial impact of this crisis. Regardless if your boss is a billionaire or what, you have to run an organization base on profit and loss. If we are suffering a loss at the moment, it makes perfect sense to be cutting cost. This is call financially responsible.
I like it how it makes sense for those at the top to “avoid making a loss” by asking their employees to literally make a (proportionally much larger loss) by taking a pay cut to prevent them having to sack people and then sacking said people anyway.
But this isn’t responsible.
Everyone in the club sanctioning this as acceptable is nothing more than a tight-arsed wanker!
We care do you?
That’s the whole point.
The players were supposed to subsidize the staff via a pay cut, because the care – and Kroenkes doesn’t.
The question should be, how may people does it take to run a football team.
To sack 55 and still have enough.
Good question.
Around the time Wenger left he said “when I came to the club there were less than 70 employees, and now we have over 400”.
Disgusting. Company I work for makes hundreds of millions but tried making 7 people on £33k a year redundant. They could of at least said that they would look to move some into different roles within the club. I doubt these 55 roles will be the difference from Arsenal being financially sound, to poor. Shocking.
This comes as absolutely no surprise whatsoever. Shameful. Disgusting.
Tarnishing the club’s historically good reputation of class.
It’s a shame we paid £350k a week to a player that we do not require his services. That’s equivalent to 350 staff weekly wages @£52000 a year
Don’t frame this as Ozil’s fault. Whatever you think of him, this is on the owners.
They’d much prefer if everyone was angry at Ozil instead of them. And remember: who sanctioned that contract for him in the first place? They did.
It’s not Ozil’s fault, but it’s symptoms of a truly sick world. An organization sees fit to pay in a month a single individual more money than 55 in a year. The value system of this world is just a joke.
Players need to have 5 to 10 luxurious cars and flaunt them while there are women with their babies in sinking boats, trying to reach places where they expect to improve their lives.
Ozil gives millions to charity every year including to refugees. Charles Watts even says most of the things he does aren’t even public. He’s a good egg.
Not exactly true is it?
I’m sure the club would let him walk for free to rid themselves of his wages
Simplistic. Stan would be bleeding money right now, but we all know Ozil was above doing his fair share.
Well exactly, you either believe that those with surplus of resources have an obligation to help those with a deficit or you don’t.
Peter is not blaming Özil. He is just stating the facts of a self sustainable club with owners you have stated many times wont spit in any extra money. A paycut of 50 000 a month for Özil would pay for the Staff wages. A pay cut of 100 000 would free up money for Aubas and Sakas new contracts. You don’t need to behave like an ahole towards him or wrongly accuse him for something he didn’t write, just because he is stating an unconvenient truth.
I am not an Ozil fan by any means but it’s completely ridiculous to try and drop this mess at his door. If you were asked to take a pay cut and wanted to know what it was going towards (preserving jobs,etc.) and Arsenal couldn’t guarantee that, why would you take one, this just shows right here why these players shouldn’t have taken one. If you were a player and took that pay cut I would be fuming and wondering why the hell I took less money if Arsenal’s ownership was just going to turn around and fire 55 employees… Read more »
It’s called business and the prize money for the FA Cup is maybe a couple of million, the main earnings are from gate receipts from the semi’s and final, which of course were played without fans.
Especially after we just got a 30m+ windfall from winning the FA cup.
Fuck you Kroenke.
Earning hundreds of milliona during the pandemic but apparently too poor to sustain 55 jobs.
I’d be happy to chip in a few quid of everyone from Arseblog wanted to somehow organise it if Arsenal agreed to keep them on! Probably just a nice idea but I’m game..
Glad someone mentioned this. I’m game. And I think it’s achievable.
This is how you shame leaders into action. Im sure Stan could do without negative media attention.
Quite honestly, I am in for this as well. I will happily spot these soulless cheapskates the funds to reward the people who ARE the club, if they can’t find it in their conscience to do so. This leaves me speechless. All the positivity from the FA Cup win deflated when you are talking about people losing their livelihood to save the owners what amounts to pocket lint compared against their wealth. I wonder how many staff celebrated an unfathomably difficult and demanding year capped with a cup win, only to have their world shattered a few days later. Fucking… Read more »
Hopefully they’ll start with themselves. #KroenkeOut.
And yet we will continue to accept his ownership of our club without complaint. Nobody is doing anything about his disgraceful and catastrophic 15-year involvement. Our class, history and tradition being tarnished bothers nobody. It’s just shameful.
I’m sure if you gave him £2/3bn he’d happily sell you the club
I’m going to bypass the sarcasm and just point out that this is his plan all along. Invest none of own money, use club to raise debt, wait for the right time to sell for a huge profit. And all the fanbase cares about is the next signing. Remember this: When Kroenke is done with Arsenal the club will be unrecognizable.
The club is unrecognisable from where it was 20 years ago as it is. I don’t get any of this “investing any of his own money” business either? 15 years ago we had a manager who was so obsessed with stopping Abramovic and his “financial doping” of Chelsea he spent years lobbying UEFA into introducing FFP, whilst at the same time stopped investing in our own team. And yes, as a fan all i care about is the team, invest in the best players possible within our budget and the business side takes care of itself. If this approach had… Read more »
Let me guess. Arsene is also responsible for coronavirus, brexit and male pattern baldness.
Obviously not
unless he mismage the club finance, he own 100% of the club, so nobody can do anything,
Newcastle fan have try for the last 8 years , its meaningless, you need a buyer and you need the owner to want to sell, until that you are stuck with him
Is Ozil one of the 55?
Just to clarify. I have nothing against Ozil. I don’t know what’s gone on. But I think he is a classy guy who does care about others. BUT. He’s a footballer. That’s what he’s paid for. And for some reason he isn’t playing. Hence the quip. And before anyone says he sells shirts I don’t think that is likely if he is not playing.
Can we make Ozil redundant? Keep the other 54. Redundancies are always tough, but sometimes it’s an excuse to clear some dead wood. I’m amazed we have 55 people we can afford to lose, so maybe the club is just too office heavy? Not saying its a nice thing, just maybe it’s not entirely financial? Be interesting if we do make any signings after laying people off.
You’re right 55 people sounds excessive and i significant percentage of the clubs headcount.
The question i have is why go public on this? They have no obligation to and i’m guessing that if the 3 players who didn’t take the pay cut where to all of a sudden agree those jobs might be saved.
[email protected]
If I email you will you tell me you have a barrel full of cash that you would like to give to me?
Do you want my account no/ password, Date of birth, mothers maiden name etc.? So that you can transfer tons of amount from your inherited wealth?
this is the normal way how to run a big company, fire employees in bad times and hire in good times. if you want to be successful in future you have to get more efficient and this can sometimes end up in redundancies. i feel sorry for this 55 people, but it would be surprising if no such measures were sanctioned in a time when almost every company does that.
No one’s questioning the need for tough decisions in hard times BUT the way it plays out in a time where oir players took cuts/Ozil didnt/we refinanced our debt/contracts have been mismanaged/our owner is a tight billionaire just speaks to a version of this club most of us didn’t grow up supporting. If you support Arsenal for its club values, this can’t sit right with you
You act surprised.
They took out membership fees already knowing we can’t go to matches and no reduction on last year’s membership either.
Sell our club to the right person
So, that saving is maybe around 6 months of Ozil’s salary. Hope he enjoys spending it as much as he must have enjoyed earning it.
More like two months salary.. (£350k p/w)
This isn’t on Ozil. This is purely on Stan. A man who is worth billions is not coughing up 2.5 million to keep his staff employed. It’s shameful and he would not even notice the difference if it was missing.
We need to kick Stan out of this club. He has no class. We need an owner who understands the values of Arsenal. All Arsenal fans need to fight and flush Stan out. We cant turn into sp*rs.
Spot on mate. Shame fans only care about the next signing and whether or not Auba will sign da ting. Kroenke is making so much money from worldwide sales, social media following, TV and sponsorship that even if we boycotted EVERY home game, it wouldn’t bother him much. But I agree that we still have to try and do something.
Start at the top. Get rid of dead wood, Raul Sanllehi.
The club, outside of the playing side, continue to disgust me
Or maybe try and get Ozil off the books before 55 loyal staff.. Just a suggestion…..
Piece of fucking shit
Hillarious crowd with the “we play 20M for player…”… yeah, we need that player, we don’t need THIS staff right now. Other than sentiment and feels this is completely fine. Can’t wait to spend on some players now and every blogger will bitch about the price in contrast to staff we had no use for. Only thing left is take advantage of Covid market.
Our club ethos and identity began to die when Hill-Wood and Co decided to cash in their chips and sell to the American KSE. They were the custodians of our club, handed down since its formation and should have acted in the interest of the club and its loyal following. Allowing that rat Gazidis to have any say in our clubs future was and has proved to be a disaster. A heartless, bloodless, souless cretin who had no connection to the fans or the club. The poor decisions made then still haunt us now. I’m not naive enough to know… Read more »
At least there can no longer be even a shred doubt as to whether Stan Kroenke has any modicum of simple human decency. That said, what of Big Raul and his cosy relationships that constantly enrich his friends and see our club paying over the odds (or simply paying at all, for deals we should never have considered!). Would love Swiss Ramble to run his looking glass over every penny that’s been squandered on cushy agent-deals; poor signings; poorer wage negotiations; shockingly managed player contracts and botched player exits… Just think – Gnabry’s current value alone would keep all those… Read more »
Whatever the cost of the “cosy relationships” Raul has with anybody will pale into insignificance to what came before and that’s the problem, Raul has came into a shit show and a firefight. It was always going to get worse before it got better
Exactly – and he was brought in precisely to sort that shit-show, NOT to simply make it worse than ever. Do not for a minute beleive the officially sugar-coating about Arsene’s departure… many tale could no doubt be told behind the scenes. And if you doubt it, Sven was next, as Raul quietly structured the club around him and his cronies. Stan may be the evil Tzar, but Raul does his dirty work.
How long, with the budget available do you think it was/is going to take?
My personal opinion was always about 5-10 from when Wenger left
5-10 years*
Cacagiano gone – quarter of a century with our club and an ex-player, not to mention universally acclaimed for his skill in scouting. Reasoning behind this? Raul’s super agent buddies don’t like clubs finding their own Cescs or Hectors or Gabriels… it’s the next brick removed from our wall – and yet you doubt.
I personally don’t have a problem with “Super agents”, it seems to be working for Wolves.
It’s not like our previous 15 years of not dealing with them has taken the club anywhere but backwards.
The moralising of our transfer business, recruitment and wage policy for the last decade and a half has been a complete disaster for the club and i don’t know how many times i have to repeat myself but is the reason we are in the predicament we find ourselves in!
Hardly a surprise. Some Gooners say “The owner is a billionaire”, true and his wife is even wealthier (Walmart heiress) but it’s not Arsenal’s money. I wish he would support our club, and it’s employees in this case, but… .The club really is in a poor financial condition and whatever Arteta’s master plan is for this transfer window, I hope that, overall, it isn’t expensive – or Plan B will need dusting off.
Right, I have faith in Arteta, but you have to wonder if it’s a bad look to say you need to fire 55 employees and turn around and sign fucking Willian.
I work in recruitment and most of my clients are laying people off in some way shape or form. Arsenal are not exempt from this and it is still a business. Yes Kroenke has piles of cash but the club still has to be profitable and pay it’s own way. I feel very sorry for the affected 55 people. I feel sorry for everyone who stands to lose their job at the moment but there will be a lot more of this. The club has tried to mitigate this with player salary cuts. Maybe if Ozil had taken a cut… Read more »
Don’t put this on Ozil. We just had a huge windfall from the FA cup. This is purely on Stan. Owning a football club is not like owning any other business. A large benefit is the legitimacy and PR value. That is worth extra investment from owners. Look at what Roman and Chelsea have done during this coronavirus crisis. That’s all out of pocket. The least our owner can do is keep this staff employed during an economic crisis.
The clubs have to be run in a profitable manner. Whether you like it or not, it is business and there are going to be massive swathes of redundancies as the furlough scheme is lifted. It is not down to Kroenke to bail the club out as we would not comply with FFP. It is crap that people are losing their jobs but a hell of a lot more are going to in the grand scheme of things. The club is not a charity and can’t sustain the employment of people if there is no work for them. It is… Read more »
This is kind of the same argument people use when trying to defend why billionaires don’t have to pay their employees a livable wage. Especially the part when you start to blame the employees (i.e. Ozil) for a situation that is directly the fault of Kroenke’s ownership.
Employers can offer whatever wage they deem the job worth, it’s up to the individual to decide whether or not they want to accept it
Great opportunity here for Ozil to step in and help out, begin rebuilding faith in the club…
faith with* the club and the fans*
No chance
I would like him to. He is a humanitarian and it would be an awesome PR victory after a quite awful smear campaign.Would shut so many up.
I see he’s tweeting about Beiruit today though so who knows where he will donate.He already gives up a large amount of his money to charity unlike Kroenke.
The refusal to take the paycut was only him asking what the cut would be for, ass you can see it was to prevent Stan losing anything, Ozil has been vindicated. I hate KSE and I hate Raul, what have they done to this club.
Whatever you think of Mesut, he’s a generous and kind man. He quietly gives to so many causes. It would be a nice gesture for him to step in here, but the owner is worth way way more. This is on Kroenke. No one else.
I agree it’s totally on Kroenke. Ozil has no obligation and already gives huge amounts to charity. I just think it would unequivocally set the record straight in people’s minds what a good person he is. He’s been subject to a barrage of hatred recently as bad as anything Mustafi or Xhaka received. Combined with the Germany situation I am actually worried about his mental health facing that level of animosity, let alone trying to play at your best level
Ozil’s social media PR in full effect yet again. Shameful.
I should have been more specific, I’m not blaming Ozil and I agree – this is on the Kroenke’s. However, I stand by the point that this could be an opportunity for Ozil to step in and do some good. I don’t disagree with statements about his work in the community already – he’s brilliant on that front. But this season he’s burned bridges with the team and the fans, this could be a chance to rebuild them. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but given our lack of creativity, his talent on his day, and the fact he’s got our balls… Read more »
He didn’t burn any bridges with me and many others. He played well when he got the chance and was picked. Was involved in loads of our goals but just at the pre assist stage as there was very little coming from our midfield. Put him in a better team and you will see a different player, touch, vision and a decent amount of pace all still there. Give him a midfield who can do the job he’s been doing and you will get an Ozil who can operate primarily in the final third. People are just obsessed with “G/A”… Read more »
What do you expect? Its not a charity.
Nobody is claiming otherwise. The point is that there are ways around this.
Like?
This is the reality of the lockdown. These sorts of redundancies are happening in every other business in the world.
At the risk of sounding melodramatic, this could well be the final straw for me. I’ve gone from absolute exhilaration from the cup win, coupled with true belief in the Arteta future, to absolute disgust with the way that the club is run. As fans, we need to find a way to let KSE know that this is not acceptable under any circumstances – and a way that will hurt him financially. PLEASE DO NOT RENEW SEASON TICKETS OR BUY ANY CLUB MERCHANDISE.
I would suggest crowdfunding a long-term communication campaign that would hit his reputation and make headlines in the US too. Hitting revenues might be difficult, but damaging the “brand” may do the trick. Even if we achieve nothing, we would have put up a fight as a community, which is what a football club actually is anyway.
I’m with you, Tapps.
This could get worse.
Just a thought – how feasible would it be to start a petition where you sign up to either a) not spend money on match days or b) not buy any more arsenal merch until the redundancies are withdrawn?
That’s probably a better way of getting more redundancies.
Here’s a thought, how about spend some money with the club so they can afford to employ them?
it would be great to organise a campaign across AST, arseblog and other organisations as they seem to have worked in recent times. this is abhorrent.
technical questions; is there any reason why players themselves can’t be made redundant? is it because you’d have to make a specific squad number/position unavailable for x years?
They’re technically contractors of sorts, as you can’t “own” someone. You own the rights for them to work (or play) exclusively for you.
They also have the right to receive money for the entirety of their contract.
So no you can’t cancel the contract unless there was gross misconduct of some sort.
Do they have a recognised union? This is a situation in which they could do with collective bargaining – at minimum demand voluntary redundancies only and get full financial disclosure before discussing any further (temporary) pays cuts to save jobs. It would be really nasty to enforce compulsory redundancies before fully exploring all other options.
Just another example of what was once called ‘social murder,’ a phrase now conveniently forgotten.
Anything yanks take over they destroy. Arsenal and my misses company are a perfect example.
My wife works for a company owned by 3 brothers that does around $8m a year. They have lost several million already but have guaranteed all jobs through 2020, which will likely need to be funded through personal loans. This shit from Arsenal ownership is cowardly and self-serving. But we are a big club, right?
I would rather be more happy if we make salary payments to those 55 staff persons even before paying to Auba.
At this point I feel how happy Ozil is.
Really poor mangement from the club.