Arsenal - A Different Football System

      Arsenal are one the top sides in the history of the Premiership and they still are a contender.  The problem is Arsenal are a side which has now gone for 5 years without a trophy and have been renowned for not spending much money in the transfer market.  Their manager Arsene Wenger has always bought young players coached them into superstars but when the egos get big Wenger tells them to move on, Pires, Henry, Viera, Toure and Adebayor all left when they still had good years in them.  But today Arsenal Football Club has announced record pre-tax profits of £56m.  The men in the boardrooms at Arsenal are doing things very differently to most of the other top clubs.  But the question is by keeping the club on a sound financial grounding stopping Arsenal from challenging for major trophies?

      Arsenal have generate most of the money from its Highbury Square property development of flats. The club said it had paid off all debt on its flats, built on the ground of its old stadium. The company said it had sold 362 private apartments at Highbury Square, these and a social housing site nearby generated £156.9m revenue from property and allowed it to repay £129.6m of bank loans.  The overall level of group net debt had fallen from £297.7m last year to £135.6m, due to the turnover growing from £313m to £379.9m.

      Commenting on the results for the year, Peter Hill-Wood, the club's non-executive chairman, said: "We now have a debt-free property business, which is accumulating surplus cash as further unit sales are made at Highbury Square, and which has three further property assets to realise over the next few years."  Chief executive Ivan Gazidis said: "The competitive landscape makes it ever tougher to achieve success on the field and standing still is simply not, and never has been, an option for the club.  It is important that we continue to develop a vibrant and robust business with sufficient revenues to sustain success."

      I agree on the whole with what they are saying, they have stabilised the club financial and put it on a platform to perform in years to come.  The money should keep coming in from the ventures outside of football which means hopefully for an Arsenal fan that they money could be coming into the transfer market pretty soon.  Most rational fans would probably accept two or three years not being at the top if it meant the club will good financial position in the future.

     The problem with that sentence is that most football fans are not rational and with the case of Arsenal it has lasted longer than 3 years, it is 5 years since Arsenal have won a trophy and it might be one or two years till they do.  The longer Arsenal go without the money and trophies, the faster they will slip from the top, if it wasn't for the good transfer business of Arsene Wenger Arsenal might of already slipped further down.  Arsenal just have to hope when they get the money comes in they are still in a position to do something with it.

     But to be far I would rather be a fan of Arsenal than Liverpool or Manchester United fan, as I would know that my side would be financially secure and I will be able to watch them in the future.