Mikel Arteta says the fact his Arsenal first team stars took a voluntary pay cut to ease the financial pressure on the club doesn’t mean they now have a say in how the club is run.
When the players were asked in May to take an annual cut of 12.5%, one of the driving forces was a desire to protect staff whose jobs were thought to be under threat.
While the Gunners resisted the temptation to use the government’s furlough scheme, they ultimately ended up making 55 redundancies across a range of positions at the beginning of this month.
The news came less than a week after Arsenal had won the FA Cup; a result that secured Europa League football and also reduced the terms of the pay cut to 7.5% each for the next 12 months.
Reports subsequently surfaced that the players were angry about the redundancies given the sacrifice they had made. It appears a meeting has since taken place, during which answers were given to their most pressing questions.
Having played an important role in getting his players on board with the cuts, you might imagine Arteta himself feels angry about the awkward position he’s been left in by the club’s billionaire owners. While he admits he regrets the job losses, he also says the club have explained why they had to happen.
Ahead of the Community Shield, he attempted to explain where he and the squad are now at.
“I understand when you’re only looking at the financial point of view [buying players and renewing contracts at a time when people are losing their jobs], you can get some contradictory messages.
“What is very clear is that the club had a very thorough plan of how they need to restructure our club in order to function better and to be more stable in the future.
“They were very convincing with every argument that they give to all of us and that it was the right thing to do.
“Obviously, it is really sad and during the Covid period when we had to make a decision to get our players to contribute to the pay cuts, one of the reasons was to maintain some of them as well.
“We’ve been trying to do the right thing and the club is trying to protect the future of the club as much as possible.”
On how the players reacted to the news, he went on: “The players were happy to contribute to help the club in this difficult financial position.
“That doesn’t mean that after you’re going to have a say in every decision made by the club. It cannot work like that.
“At the end of the day, it [the pay cut] was not an obligation, it was a choice whether they wanted to do it or not.
“We tried to do the right thing from a human means to help the club that has been supporting us; in my case for many, many years and in a lot of the cases here as well, whether you were injured, sick, performing or not performing.
“We believe that it was the right thing to do. Then the club has to be free to try to fight for the future in the most positive and stable way. That’s how we do it.”
It remains to be seen whether the club is forced into further redundancies as the full extent of the financial fallout from Covid-19 plays out. We hope not.
For the record, while some clubs secured wage deferrals from their players, our players are the only ones in the Premier League who committed to a cut. Our executive team also committed to a 33% wage reduction for a year.
As things stand, no other top-flight club has announced mass redundancies although that could change.
In the end success on the pitch will be the key.
Arteta spoke like a true capitalism apologist. But can we think for a moment what other options he had without getting in the wrong books of the KSE? I think none.
What’s wrong with capitalism?
literally everything
Yeah damn that capitalism bullshit. We should sign Messi and ask him to work for the same as some barista who just got off the boat from EasterN Europe. See how that plays out,
It’s this kind of lowbrow strawman that shows how detached from reality some of you are.
Oh dear, better stick to predicting today’s formation.
Yeah, we wouldn’t have all this inequality if it wasn’t for capitalism. We would all be equally poor. The Soviet Union had it right all along. Yes to gulags!
It’s possible there is a way that’s better than both …
F.. K Arteta dont be yes man!!!! How much pay cut our billionaire owner did?
How much pay cut did the coach himself do?
Didn’t think of Arteta as a company man.
i’d have liked him to share those ‘convincing arguments’ with us, but that shouldn’t be on him really…
off topic but, what happened to the green ‘view lastest articles’ button? it was very useful and saved me lots of time
I can sort that out
thank you!
I feel this comment section is about to get seriously depressing, so…?
Would you rather…
Every time Mourinho sneezes he also shits his pants (thumbs up)
Every time teddy sher**ngham has an orgasm he gets hit on the arse by lightening (thumbs down)
I would rather that every time Mourinho shits his pants, Teddy Sheringham gets hit by lightning. That’s win, win.
Just fecal incontinence for Mourinho whatever he is doing preferably
Thought he had that anyway, everytime he speaks, crap comes out.
This is true
The definition of a tyranny of choice.
can I phone a friend?
Private profits and socialized losses! The team were persuaded to feel socal responsibilities not shared by the club’s owner. If you’ve never seen it up close before, this is American-style Capitalism. Some of the players and Arteta were played for mugs.
As an American, this is absolutely true. There is no room for mercy in our version of capitalism.
Sociopathic billionaires, who have more than we could make in 10,000 lifetimes, would see their own mother living on the street if it meant saving a dollar.
I’m lucky to be a worker in a key industry, would I take a salary cut to keep my colleagues employed..of course, would I be pissed my company let go 55 employees after doing so..yeh, I get restructuring it has been the term used on my last 3 redundancies, 2 companies went to the wall the other 1 took a few years to get to its feet in another country to thrive again, gutted for the Arsenal employees losing their jobs but a lot more have lost theirs, to some of you who view these posts as an escape from… Read more »
As much as these redundancies are bad news, I fully expect other clubs to announce their own as the months go on with Covid continuing. There is no way we will be the only club to have had this happen to us
That was what we assume regarding the pay cut back then and as for now, we are only the premier league club that had their players pay cut. So regarding the redundancies, we shall observe but to be frank, i am just skeptical about this.
When the stadiums fill up, we’ll be employing again pretty quickly
I am so thankful that Mikel Arteta is at our club. He really knows what to say. Transparency that we haven’t had for quite awhile.
Nope the billionaire could easily have saved those jobs.
For me, the problem isn’t redundancies, it’s the timing of the redundancies. You don’t do that in the middle of a pandemic, leaving people without salaries during such difficult economic times for the little man.
It’s disgusting that billionaires aren’t willing to help out during such times. And when things are back to normal, we will continue to fill up their pockets as we always have done.
That’s corporate capitalism for you, in a time of massive globalization.
If the pay cut is not an obligation, why involve yourself in the negotiation? Why leaked ozil name when he refused it? to make him as an example? I’m sorry arteta but that’s fucking bullshit.
First time commenting here, apologies in advance for the sentimentality to follow but that’s gonna be the primary motivation of this comment, so feel free to look away now. I’ve been coming to this blog for years via links from newsnow etc. but the quality of posts as well as (not always, but typically 😉 the comments section, I have noticed recently arseblog has become my go-to source of arsenal news and discussion, to the point that I now find myself typing arseblog straight into the address bar before/if bothering to check anywhere else. I’m not sure if I’m going… Read more »
What Blogs has created here is such an amazing resource. As someone from the U.S. who didn’t grow up with the club like so many of the life-long True Gooners out there, this site and the podcasts have seriously stoked the flames of my fandom.
I don’t know if that’s necessarily a good thing for my health considering what a roller coaster ride it is being an Arsenal supporter, but I’m well past the point of no return. No regrets, though!
What a great couple of comments. As someone who grew up in the area and still goes to games, I for one look forward to bumping into you in one of the pubs in Islington before a game some time in the future when things normalise.
The fact that Stan Kroenke (who is richer than rich and has only gotten richer during the pandemic) couldn’t be bothered to stump up the change to keep people on the payroll pretty much says it all about where his priorities are.
If they wanted to fire people fine, do that. Don’t hide behind covid and “economic imperatives” when that’s clearly bollocks.
Arsenal is a business. Very few businesses have employees making the decisions. Perhaps they should, but they don’t. Although some Gooners still appear not to accept the financial realities, the fact is that money is very tight at The Emirates – and may get tighter. So far, we’ve actually increased overall spending due to William’s massive salary. With match day income likely to be hit hard, that can’t go on.
The “financial reality” is that to a football club the size of Arsenal, both the pay cuts and the “redundancies” are a drop in the bucket.
It adds up to what – 5 million?
That’s the loan fee for Cedric.
Top football clubs don’t cover losses by laying off hospitality staff – they cover losses by selling players.
I agree – and I didn’t say that, of course. The financial position at The Emirates is very tight and saving a few £million by letting staff go won’t have much of an effect. As I say elsewhere on the site, we must sell players in order to reduce the (player!!) wage bill (which is a big problem – it’s still a CL bill on a Europa League income), raise funds and free up squad spaces so that Arteta can bring in at least some of the players he wants. If it ain’t coming in, it can’t go out. Simple.
Everyone is jumping on their high horse…if you are running a business (even as billionaire) you’re not gonna take the hot yourself…its your staff that will cop it. Too many lefty liberals nowdays
Hit*
Grown ups of the world unite.
Unite together at the dole office like the good little drones you are, keep your mouths shut and take your medicine.
Or stamp your feet and the thcweam and thcweam until you’re sick like Violet Elizabeth Bott.
Exactly. You’ve just described the problem with capitalism in one short post.
Under capitalism, the people who do the work – without which work there would be no “business – are the first to suffer any negative consequences.
The people at the top – who often, as the Kroenkes, literally do nothing – are protected from getting a financial hit of any kind.
Brilliant, isn’t it – a financial system designed to protect those who are already wealthy at the expense of everyone else.
55 people is hardly mass reside Dan you. You would think that we Arsenal were British Leyland.
We employed around 200 people more than Manchester City. Right sizing sounds more like the correct term.
Mass redundancies….l
Socialists coming out of the woodword, meh. You don’t get a salary for existing – you must earn your keep, and if the club doesn’t have anything for you to do because the stadium is shut, then tough. The reason capitalism is responsible for all economic success is because it deals in realism.
Jeez, asking people to take responsibility for themselves and not be a victim – how radical!
Without ‘socialists’ my friend, you wouldn’t have any rights at all. Drop you in the 1800s you’d be begging for some ‘socialists’ to come and save your worthless ass.
You’re right, of course. But at what point do you stop fighting a 19th century class war and join the real world? In UK we have education and health free at the point of use. A marvellous achievement. We are no longer where we were.
at the same time, without market capitalism there would be no incentive to create the businesses which provide employment for everyone. Personally I have no desire to live in a caravan in north wales singing workers songs about the coming revolution and washing in the local stream, pining for some non existent bucolic socialist utopia.
What’s Josh have to do to “earn his keep” other than exist?
If we sign a player, is he asked to take the 12.5% paycut?