Arsenal finacially

I live in Australia, and watch 95% of all our league games on fox sports but since I am not exposed to news (as the premier league gets minimum attention over here) I am not exactly the most knowledgable fan in the world. However, places such as this forum help me to learn more about the club. I was chatting with an inter milan supporter on msn (whose also australian) and he informed me that Arsenal are extremly tight financially, that we struggle to keep players and will suffer due to the fact chelsea is also a london team and have alot of money. He said that Arsenal needs to win the champions league as we need all the money we can get.

Could you guys please tell me if this is true? Are we doing well financially? What teams have more money then us, and how much aadvantage do they have?

 

He also mentioned that. He said it will effect us in the short team, but that we;ll benifit in the long run. I think he is suggesting we will slide soon. He also mentioned that Henry only has 4 years left in him and we'll struggle more when he goes.

 

He goes by the name of half-man. Said that you and thierry (not the real thierry, the guy who posts under his name) would agree with him!

 

He is offline now, he was on not long ago. I am 1 of only 5 permanently unblocked members on his list though.

 

The thing is right now all our money is being used to help fund the stadium. We are becoming a bigger club, we need more money and the only way we can make more is to move into a bigger stadium. So the club is 100% behind building this stadium. Problem is it will cost us like £400mill, most will be a loan but we gotta put in a lot of money. This means Wenger won't have a lot to play around with.

Everyone was moaning about us not signing any players but we actually made the most important signings of the whole summer. Henry, Vieira and Pires extending their contracts was far more important than bringing in any player. Vieira and Henry are 2 players who we could never replace as there simply is no one as good as them. We aren't struggling to keep anyone, only Vieira wanted assurances over the clubs future and once he got them he signed. All 3 could of left us for more money but chose to stay with us.

We don't need to win anything but with the quality of our team we should be able to win the league and seriously challenge for the CL.

Chelsea are backed by a super rich russian. Right now their wage bill is well over £100mill, their turnover probably doesn't even cover their wage bill let alone their total costs. So if Roman leaves tomarrow they will be so badly screwed, probably bankrupt in a few years time. They rely only on him, he is gonna try and get the club to stand on its own 2 feet but its gonna be tough because they will need to turnover quite a lot to break even. Clubs should never go above 70% of their turnover on their wage bill, we spend around 52% of our turnover so we fine at this moment, man utd are around 45% so they are ok as well, dunno about chelsea but they are well over. That is why the G14 group don't want to let them in.

 

I think thats a fairly accurate statement. Preety amazing though, as good a mates as we are we've had alot of scuffles over the years. I think the main reason I'm unblocked is because i'm entertaining....not trying to brag or anything! 8)

 

It will benefit us long term, short term we will have to make some sacrafices.

When Anelka left they said we could never replace him. Henry can create and score, this means when he is older he can become a second striker instead of leading the line. He is 26, so I'd say he has 6 good years still in him. From 28-30 players are at their peak.

 

Thankyou! That answers alot of my questions.

 

No problem, don't hesitate if you want to ask any more

 

Its my dream to see Arsenal play Buzz boy. I don't care if its a 3rd round FA cup match against a team Iv'e never heard of, seeing the gunners play would be unreal.

 

Wenger's policy of developing youth is starting to pay off with Cole, and now Aliadiere, and perhaps in a few years Volz, Bentley and Cesc. We have managed to attract the best young talent to the club and as a result, we should be able to maintain the quality of the side should a player like Pires leave. This stands us in good stead for the future.

I wouldn't say that we're in a bad financial situation at all. We're at the end of the era of punching above our weight - we're moving our weight higher so we can compete at the top top level.

If we can safely negotiate the move to Ashburton, the future should be very bright for us - we'll be talked about in the same financial league as Man Utd and Liverpool.

 

Do you reckon we could fill a 60,000 seater stadium for the games vs Bolton,Portsmouth etc.

 

Yes. Easily.

 

We have so many people on the waiting list so it will probably be sold out all the time. We were only allowed to make the stadium 60,000 because of the stupid council (like a local government). So many people protested but we still got permission. Now within a few weeks we shall have the finances sorted out. Would of prefered a 75k stadium but we can extend our new one, just gotta persuade the council :? When we played our CL matches at Wembley we were selling Wembley out so we can sell 70k consistantly imo

Also we will be making loads of flats and homes, this is condition put on us by the council. However these flats will be worth quite a lot so when we sell them off they will make us quite a lot of money back. The thing is it is a massive project so the banks are hesistating on us giving us money as we have never been involved in something like this.

Rest assured, our future is safe. Don't believe this media crap, they are only trying to sell papers. Also like Jinn said we have so many promising young players coming through who will save us millions in the transfer market

 

60,000 would be no problem.

Chelsea are'nt a money making operation, they are the toy of a millionaire, they have proven they can't cut it fianancially and were humiliated this summer when they were days away from collapse. This was down to them trying to become the Man Utd of the south, with their megastore etc.

 

Arsenal has stated more than once that the problems with the new stadium are near to an end. The financial problems are nearly solved and the council has accepted the plans. Mr Wenger stated last summer that the stadium is very important if we want to become one of the biggest clubs in Europe. 60k seats will give us much more money per game. In the future the club must make money and not just borrow them or get them from TV-channels as a lot of clubs tend to. The TV-money can easily come to an end as they did for the Nationwide and that would be the exit for a lot of clubs.
As for signing new players rumours said that Wenger had something like 10 mil this year. I have never red it my self so.. We have to wait and see.

 

the stadium is a long term investment that will about double gross revenue for home games. the returns for this kind of investment can be forecasted with a great degree of predictability. there will always be risks (the biggest one being what if the stadium stops during construction), but revenue-wise its quite predictable. the trick now for the team is to continue playing in form and winning and this is where wenger MUST be supported by the board. since as long as we can assure the predictability of home revenue (basically by playing class football) two to three years down the line, there really is little reason for creditors to fear for this project at all.

 

The biggest concern for the club as a whole is getting the funding in place for the stadium, there is huge pressure on the board and Wenger over this, and it is telling.