Mikel Arteta has dismissed suggestions that Arsenal’s spending could fall foul of Uefa’s Financial Fair Play rules despite The Times claiming earlier in the week that the club are on the governing body’s ‘watch list’.
While it’s true that Arsenal’s net spend over the last three summers, coupled with the financial ramifications of the Covid-19 pandemic, have resulted in huge losses, the boss insists the club’s bean counters have the situation under control.
“We are compliant and we have heard nothing, so I don’t know where that has come from,” said Arteta on Friday.
The Spaniard also maintains that Arsenal’s future ambitions in the transfer market, whether that be in the next week or beyond, are not be affected.
“No, I think the club has been very disciplined over time and with a very clear vision how we want to do things, the limitations we have and how we have to deal with things. In that sense, nothing changes.”
Just to make clear, that doesn’t mean we’re currently in a position to throw silly money at Wolves for Pedro Neto. There are still parameters within which we’re operating, we’re just sailing closer to the wind than in previous years.
For those looking to better understand Arsenal’s financial situation, we point you in the direction of this thread by football finance expert @SwissRamble.
Arsenal fans will be delighted with the team’s good start to the season, so are probably unconcerned about the financial implications of their player recruitment, but it is maybe worth looking at whether there will be any issues with Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations #AFC
— Swiss Ramble (@SwissRamble) August 22, 2022
Cheekiest question of the presser goes to the guy who asked “When Auba is back in London, will you look him up and go for a coffee with him?”
Brilliant. Even Mikel had a wry smile.
“I don’t usually do that with players”.
I don’t usually do that with wan… players
What do you mean by implying Auba is a wan….player?
I’m sure it’s a Star Wars pun and nothing more sinister.
Auba Wan Kenobi.
The whole FFP thing is real headscratcher when Barca, PSG, City etc seem to do whatever they like and when we splash some cash, after being a beacon of integrity for years, we get the spotlight.
On a seperate note, Swissramble really is amazing in passing on his knowledge.
Even I got it.
Ya think? I still don’t get it.
It seems to be because FFP compliance is only assessed over quite a short period (3 years?). So our years of under-investment don’t count for much when we start to splash some cash in recent seasons (finally!). That said, Barca and PSG is indeed a headscratcher, while City don’t have such a big net spend these days because they are selling well even when they buy a Grealish… but it was something I never understood with City about 5-7 years ago. I agree we should be fine, as Swissramble basically just says we are starting to sail close to the… Read more »
Completely agree – such a great job done by SwissRamble on this stuff. It should read as a note of caution to a lot of fans who think we can just do window after window like this (or too much more this window) and remain compliant. The key takeaway is the club have done the maths and we appear to be ok, but that it is tight.
Also, can we please continue to include Chelsea and Man United on the naughty list, none of their financial metrics read any better than City’s in the last 5 years!
Edu did say that we would spend heavy for a couple of windows and then after that it would just be one or two players per window as a top-up.
Nice idea in theory.
There will also come a time when other clubs come in for some of our star players and the player will fancy a change of scenery. Arsenal fans need to be mentally prepared for this.
What about man utd, the way they’re going it looks like they’ll set a new record. Never thought I’d see astronomical expenditure for such mediocre recruitment.
Not 100% convinced we’ve been a ‘beacon of integrity’. Remember the interest free loan to Beveren-Waas that we had no intention of ever getting back – just so that we could ship African players to them until such time they qualified for EU passports? Admittedly, not as filthy as the obvious suspects – but we’re not squeaky clean ourselves either.
There was nothing illicit with the Beveren agreement though.
Dear UEFA,
✊Shove it..
.. sideways.
Are any of those beans magic?
There’s a lot of “I smell the blood…” if you dare look on the other side of the bean stalk
Mikel probably knows all the FFP tricks after City swept a load of finance under the carpet with all sorts of schemes.
Yes, I’m sure the finance types there are in the habit of sharing their accounting methods with the assistant football coaches…
Exactly
Nowadays the Times are a trash newspaper. Not a reliable source of info.
That Times article was printed just after Swiss Ramble’s Twitter thread.
I’d say a journo at The Times just needed a quick article and used that thread as the backbone to knock something out.
I wouldn’t read too much into it.
I don’t suppose that any FFP rules will stop the Barcodes becoming the opposition to Moneychester ¢it€h over the next couple of years.
Pleased to hear FFP isnt dead yet, sorry its so toothless, assume we’re compliant.
That is alright then.
Just watching the brilliant all or nothing documentary, specifically the Aubameyang issue.
Arsenal handled it well in my opinion but what made me laugh was the Arsenal officials waiting for Barcelona to call and make an offer for him and there is the cleaning lady hoovering while they waited.
Something that dominated the footballing world and the hoovering must go on…
Wouldn’t surprise me if that cleaning lady was an uncover spy sent by Joan Laporta to gather critical intel.
Comply or die!!! Unless you have financial levers, are owned by a nation state with endless money, or grease the palms of the right suits!
In quiet moments I sometimes wish we were a club with at least some of those, don’t you?
On Football Manager sure, but we spend nearly as much as those clubs without the moral quandaries that comes with that ownership. Not that Stan is a paragon of virtue, but he doesn’t have people killed, subjugate entire communities (unless we go into KSE political donations), and leverage the club to its hilt… that we know of.
Good news indeed. I’d still feel a tad easier though if the likes of Bellerin and AMN were off the books in this window following Pepe’s welcome departure on loan. Still time.