What would Arsenal do if.....

[frankbutcher]

....another Premier League Club was bought by a middle-Eastern, Russian or Chinese Billionaire? At the moment top 4 is achievable even ignoring the fact that the top 3 can't be matched money-wise. This is Wenger's and the Club's excuse for not competing. But if a further Club or Clubs were bought out, how do you think the Club would react?

- Would Kroenke sell up to Usmanov and let him go mad in the transfer market?
- Would we try to eek out a modest profit from Europa League football and assume (wrongly) that the fans will continue to pay top dollar while we develop and then sell our top players to the Billionaire-owned Clubs each year.

I reckon Kroenke would go for the latter. I really see his Plan B as being the pre-eminent Moneyball Club and letting Wenger develop youth and then sell them on for massive fees. To a large extent it's already happening. If you look at the Club, we now have a conveyor belt of youth coming through which could be sold for large fees. The Club will tell us that they have no choice but to balance the books, but I see this as being a deliberate Business plan.

What do you reckon?

[QuartzGooner]

Plan B, but it is doubtful that much money could be made for long, because I think the lucrative platinum level revenues would fall too far to sustain the model.

The big risk would be we fall lower than Europa league qualification after a couple of seasons.

Repeated Europa League status would push the fans into supporting Usmanov or another mega money man takeover.

[frankbutcher]

Plan B, but it is doubtful that much money could be made for long, because I think the lucrative platinum level revenues would fall too far to sustain the model.

The big risk would be we fall lower than Europa league qualification after a couple of seasons.

Repeated Europa League status would push the fans into supporting Usmanov or another mega money man takeover.

Hmmmm. The thing is that if we carry on for another 5-10 years selling players for a £20-30m profit each Summer, and completing deals such as Queensland Road, the debt will be pretty much halved. At that point the overhead of the Club is signficantly reduced and we can probably get away without relying on Club Level and Box income. It's interesting what would happen if the Club's hand was forced by a new Billionaire-backed Club on the scene. FFP is destined to fail and I can see the Chinese moving in before long. Who next? Will need to have their own ground and be in a prime area. My money would be on West Ham.

[arseofacrow]

Plan B, but it is doubtful that much money could be made for long, because I think the lucrative platinum level revenues would fall too far to sustain the model.

The big risk would be we fall lower than Europa league qualification after a couple of seasons.

Repeated Europa League status would push the fans into supporting Usmanov or another mega money man takeover.

Hmmmm. The thing is that if we carry on for another 5-10 years selling players for a £20-30m profit each Summer, and completing deals such as Queensland Road, the debt will be pretty much halved. At that point the overhead of the Club is signficantly reduced and we can probably get away without relying on Club Level and Box income. It's interesting what would happen if the Club's hand was forced by a new Billionaire-backed Club on the scene. FFP is destined to fail and I can see the Chinese moving in before long. Who next? Will need to have their own ground and be in a prime area. My money would be on West Ham.

I was talking recently about this point in relation to the Olympic Stadium.

I think it's highly likely that unless structures in other countries such as Italy (ground ownership) and Germany (club ownership) change, then there ie a very good chance we will see more big money on the scene in the UK.

[QuartzGooner]

But the problem with us, according to the figures Swiss Rambler has looked at, is that the property profits have only one more go.

Queensland Road it is, but once that is sold off and developed that is our lot.

Our profit without property and player sales is only £7M a year.

If we end up in Europa League, we are going to find it harder to attract players, and hence ticket sales will fall, and money to spend on players will fall, and we slip further down the league and so the "MoneyBall" model produces only a slim profit, or none at all.

New commercial deals should help, but with lower league placements our TV revenue will drop too.

All of which can cause share price to drop...something not appealing to our owners.

[frankbutcher]

But the problem with us, according to the figures Swiss Rambler has looked at, is that the property profits have only one more go.

Queensland Road it is, but once that is sold off and developed that is our lot.

Our profit without property and player sales is only £7M a year.

If we end up in Europa League, we are going to find it harder to attract players, and hence ticket sales will fall, and money to spend on players will fall, and we slip further down the league and so the "MoneyBall" model produces only a slim profit, or none at all.

New commercial deals should help, but with lower league placements our TV revenue will drop too.

All of which can cause share price to drop...something not appealing to our owners.

But....... if Kroenke is to compete, the investment won't equal the reward. If he is to sell to Usmanov, I'm not sure he'll get such a high price as Usmanov will realise the money he needs to spend and the competition he's up against (City, Chelsea and United). I suppose Kroenke could just sell up to whoever, but with the Uzbek in the background who would want to buy us? Difficult to really predict.

[augie]

It would almost be comical if another club was bought out by mega wealthy people - I find it embarassing that people like wenger believe that FFP will ever come in (unless heavily diluted from current form) and they cling to that belief like it is the last life jacket on a sinking ship (no anology intended).

[QuartzGooner]

But the problem with us, according to the figures Swiss Rambler has looked at, is that the property profits have only one more go.

Queensland Road it is, but once that is sold off and developed that is our lot.

Our profit without property and player sales is only £7M a year.

If we end up in Europa League, we are going to find it harder to attract players, and hence ticket sales will fall, and money to spend on players will fall, and we slip further down the league and so the "MoneyBall" model produces only a slim profit, or none at all.

New commercial deals should help, but with lower league placements our TV revenue will drop too.

All of which can cause share price to drop...something not appealing to our owners.

But....... if Kroenke is to compete, the investment won't equal the reward. If he is to sell to Usmanov, I'm not sure he'll get such a high price as Usmanov will realise the money he needs to spend and the competition he's up against (City, Chelsea and United). I suppose Kroenke could just sell up to whoever, but with the Uzbek in the background who would want to buy us? Difficult to really predict.

That has often been my thinking; that to push us on from our current level, the investment in players needed will not be rewarded by the increase in prize money and TV money.

But we can push on without ridiculous extra investment, if we improve coaching and sell off the non descript payers.

But to be honest I am really not sure Wenger is the man to do that.

[frankbutcher]

But the problem with us, according to the figures Swiss Rambler has looked at, is that the property profits have only one more go.

Queensland Road it is, but once that is sold off and developed that is our lot.

Our profit without property and player sales is only £7M a year.

If we end up in Europa League, we are going to find it harder to attract players, and hence ticket sales will fall, and money to spend on players will fall, and we slip further down the league and so the "MoneyBall" model produces only a slim profit, or none at all.

New commercial deals should help, but with lower league placements our TV revenue will drop too.

All of which can cause share price to drop...something not appealing to our owners.

But....... if Kroenke is to compete, the investment won't equal the reward. If he is to sell to Usmanov, I'm not sure he'll get such a high price as Usmanov will realise the money he needs to spend and the competition he's up against (City, Chelsea and United). I suppose Kroenke could just sell up to whoever, but with the Uzbek in the background who would want to buy us? Difficult to really predict.

That has often been my thinking; that to push us on from our current level, the investment in players needed will not be rewarded by the increase in prize money and TV money.

But we can push on without ridiculous extra investment, if we improve coaching and sell off the non descript payers.

But to be honest I am really not sure Wenger is the man to do that.

Fully agree. The biggest falllacy is that we are light years behind City, Chelsea and United on overall wage bill. We aren't! It's just that the dross is on big money and our genuuine talent is underpaid. How anyone thought that would work I do not know....

[safcftm]

It would almost be comical if another club was bought out by mega wealthy people - I find it embarassing that people like wenger believe that FFP will ever come in (unless heavily diluted from current form) and they cling to that belief like it is the last life jacket on a sinking ship (no anology intended).

On the contrary, I think financial fair play is bound to come in. The traditional big clubs don't like to see upstarts like Chelsea and now Man City come in and take their revenue and they're all shit scared of what will happen if more clubs are bought and funded in this manner. UEFA don't want a CL full of Man City's and Malaga's, changing whenever a new billionaire comes into play, they want the nice settled set up they've had for years because these clubs build support bases abroad and contribute massively to their advertising revenue from the CL.

If the big clubs keep getting pushed out by "new money" clubs, they'll band together (Man United, Liverpool, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Juventus and AC Milan in particular, the real european superpowers), they'll fuck UEFA off and they'll start their own European league. They'd invite the next level clubs (Arsenal amongst them) and most would go for it. This new league with the major european names would become the only league/ competition worth screening for European, Asian and American broadcasters, the revenue would be massive, the wages would follow and therefore so would all the major players, even in the knowledge that it would prevent them representing their countries as the national teams are extensions of the FA's and therefore they couldn't compete in UEFA or FIFA events, they'd just follow the money. The money going there would put UEFA and FIFA in a very bad position, a lot less money coming in if the biggest game you could hope for is Lazio v Everton or similar.

This isn't just scaremongering, the major clubs will have already discussed it and UEFA will know that its a very real possibility, what would stop the clubs doing it and setting up their own little closed league? The revenue possibilities are almost limitless, travel isnt a problem for clubs nowadays. The only way UEFA can keep the major super powers happy is by maintaining the status quo, and thereby maintaining their position of power within football and the only way they can do that is by introducing FFP.

What Man City have done isn't exactly fair, but if you are limited to only spending footballing revenue then how could anyone ever catch the likes of Man United? Their advertising, sponsorship and merchandise sales are through the roof, they get huge pots of money from their annual CL appearances- clubs who aren't in the top few places now could never challenge them. The only way any club can catch them currently is by "doing a Man City"- UEFA will close that "loophole", protect the top clubs and ensure no more Man City's can come up and spoil their party. FFP is coming, it'll close the shop and as a fairly big (in european terms) and major (in english terms) club, Arsenal will do pretty well out of it, especially with the relative wealth of the fans and thus their ability to pay top price for tickets. Personally I think the Arsenal hierarchy know this is coming, I think they know it will protect Arsenal's position as one of the very few who can hope to overthrow Man United and I think this is a period of consolodation and debt reduction to enable them to capitalise fully on it. In a few years I don't think many people will be complaining about the actions of this Arsenal board tbh, but I could be wrong of course

[augie]

What you argument forgets is that clubs like barca, real Madrid & big Italian clubs are bankrolled by wealthy owners rather than club generated funds - will uefa throw them out of champs league ? I don't fcuking think so. Actually the situation with the Spanish clubs is slightly different cos both are bailed out by big banks and local government rather than wealthy individuals but the fact remains they they are far from debt free.

The citeeh case always amuses me with uefa talk about governing them financially - we have already seen citeeh clinch a huge sponsorship deal with a mega wealthy airline owned by a relative of monsour but what the fcuk can uefa do about it ? We all know that the deal far exceeded market value but what right has any organisation got to tell citeeh how much their brand can get them in sponsorship deals ? The chavs debts has in every season been written off by abramovich so if their club is debt free and under no threat of financially collapsing how can uefa bar them from uefa comps even if their expenditure in a season was 50m more than their income ? If the money going into these clubs is legal then that is all that matters

It's funny that all this FFP bullshit only started to be proposed when traditional powerhouses like bayern started getting left behind but financial imbalance never worried them when they were hoovering up all the best players in Germany through the wealth that they had over their opponents Even our own club seen no harm cherry picking the best talent from the smaller clubs cos that was what our increased funds allowed us to do but now that we are the small clubs seeing their best players being lured away every season, we bleat about how unfair the whole system is I don't care how citeeh and the chavs got thei money cos I know that, when used properly, our finances would allow us to compete most seasons anyway but it is our own mismanagement that is causing our decline more than anything else

[DB10GOONER]

What you argument forgets is that clubs like barca, real Madrid & big Italian clubs are bankrolled by wealthy owners rather than club generated funds - will uefa throw them out of champs league ? I don't fcuking think so. Actually the situation with the Spanish clubs is slightly different cos both are bailed out by big banks and local government rather than wealthy individuals but the fact remains they they are far from debt free.

The citeeh case always amuses me with uefa talk about governing them financially - we have already seen citeeh clinch a huge sponsorship deal with a mega wealthy airline owned by a relative of monsour but what the fcuk can uefa do about it ? We all know that the deal far exceeded market value but what right has any organisation got to tell citeeh how much their brand can get them in sponsorship deals ? The chavs debts has in every season been written off by abramovich so if their club is debt free and under no threat of financially collapsing how can uefa bar them from uefa comps even if their expenditure in a season was 50m more than their income ? If the money going into these clubs is legal then that is all that matters

It's funny that all this FFP bullshit only started to be proposed when traditional powerhouses like bayern started getting left behind but financial imbalance never worried them when they were hoovering up all the best players in Germany through the wealth that they had over their opponents Even our own club seen no harm cherry picking the best talent from the smaller clubs cos that was what our increased funds allowed us to do but now that we are the small clubs seeing their best players being lured away every season, we bleat about how unfair the whole system is I don't care how citeeh and the chavs got thei money cos I know that, when used properly, our finances would allow us to compete most seasons anyway but it is our own mismanagement that is causing our decline more than anything else

Y'know, augie? For a bald bastard you do speak some real sense sometimes. Agree with every word.

[I Hate Hleb]

is it because more oxygen can penetrate the top of his head as there are no obsticles?

[DB10GOONER]

is it because more oxygen can penetrate the top of his head as there are no obsticles?

FACT.

[highburyJD]

obsticles

hhmm a cross between testicles and obstetrics (foetal surgery)??
whatever the hell that is it sounds damn sore
(poor augie, now wonder he's so moody)