Leveraged Sellout - The Arsenal Finance Thread

Wengers' the one writing the checks (or not as the case may be) for players.

 

Just saw a piece on FSReport about how UEFA is warning EPL clubs with big debt that they might be banned from UEFA competition. Seems like a hollow warning to me but we'll see.

But the recent market "crashes" has got me wondering how the clubs will fare, especially Arsenal, whichreally needs to be able to finish (and sell!) all the Highbury flats in order to make their financial model hum.

I also have been assuming for a long time that one reason (but not the only reason) Arsene hasn't been spending much in the last few years is to allow the club to be able to weather any bad economics that might come it's way.
(Although he rarely if ever has admitted to this)

And I don't think he probably envisioned what's happening w/ credit & banks in the US & Europe right now. But I have a feeling that the club's financial position is going to be severely tested in the coming year.

But it's good to know that ManU has 3X as much debt as we have. Good luck to them.

 

Mr. Wenger may or may not be deciding the players wages but I suspect the Club Chairman signs all the checks. I know that's how it works at most companies....

 

Luckily, we have massive cash reserves and reasonable debt payments, unlike ManU and Liverpool.

 

Nothing to back this up,but I would imagine most of the big clubs in Europe have major debt's,so I'm looking forward to a Watford V Gothenberg final in a few years.
Funny how this idea wasn't thrown in the pot a few years ago, when the Spanish and Italian giants were up to their necks in it.

Uefa and a British bias..surely not

 

I didn't know I was being obtuse. Let me rephrase that:

Wenger is the one deciding to spend or not spend on transfers. He is the one "opposed to spending a little bit more of (our cash)".

 

i sense he's plotting

 

I expect we are entering a period to be characterized by the exact dangers against which AW and the board have been preparing all these years. Perhaps when transfer fees come crashing down to levels which are more defensible in terms of actual player value we'll see M. Wenger dip into the market a bit more. I hear Warren Buffet is buying.

 

I don't see too much where this idea comes from that the world of football is going to face this huge change.

Some teams who were hoping to get massive funding for new stadiums or whose wealth was backed by a bank that is now collapsed are impacted and there's obviously some smaller impacts (less money spent by fans temporarily, etc.)

But the teams are still going to get their TV rights checks, their CL money, etc. And in 2010, the EPL foreign deal is still going to be incredibly lucrative, meaning every team in the Premiere League is going to be getting tens of millions of pounds more each year.

I can't imagine the transfer market bombing down to a point where Wenger's antiquated concept of value becomes the norm.

 

Actually, if my memory serves me correctly, transfer deals in the EPL were over 500 million pounds this summer, which was an all-time high.

EDIT: Here is a source. http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/press_release/0,1014,cid%253D222297%2526pv%253DY,00.html

This article also includes a couple quotes about how football isn't being as impacted by the financial difficulties as other markets.

The January 2008 transfer window was also an all time high in England.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7221766.stm

 

Not trying to stir the pot here, but both of these sources are from February of 2008, and seem to allude to the summer transfer window of 2007, not 2008 which Terp suggests. Finances and concerns were admittedly much different then...so I think the original comment about clubs hitting the financial wall is still relevant - and thus reason for concern to most EPL and international clubs.

Edit: I'm an idiot - forgot the that the month and date were switched outside the US...disregard this stupid post.

 

"Premier League clubs’ net transfer fee spending was £215m, being the net amount that flows to non-English clubs and Football League clubs. This is slightly below the net £240m outlay last summer."

 

This is fair. I think it still shows that it fits within a normal range of the market, not being a down year.

Between the 150+ million pounds spent in January and the 500+ million pounds spent in July, August, and the first day of September, about a billion US dollars were spent on transfers by English clubs in 2008.

 

Well, net spending was certainly down, by 25 million pounds from last year, that's a significant amount. A few clubs spent big without selling, but the rest was just player turnover.

Who knows, January might be a new record for player movement, fueled by firesales at Portsmouth and West Ham.

 

25 million pounds is just 1.25 million pounds less per team, in net. Total outlays were up about the same amount.

And I don't buy the "a few teams spent" idea. A team like Tottenham, with all its spending, actually contributes a substantial negative to the net after all its sales, so that doesn't warp it. Chelsea's spending was also quite small. Manchester United had the Berbatov signing, and Liverpool with their assortment of half-baked goods, but...

There was still sizable spending from the midtable. Even cheap Everton splashed out on their club record transfer (and yes, I know they did sell a bit to get there).

I just think this idea that it was this major down market this summer is a complete myth not substantiated by the numbers. The only thing missing from this summer was a huge signing at Chelsea, which would have put the numbers right back at near identical levels. I am going to assume that the argument isn't that Chelsea are broke?

 

25 million pounds is just 1.25 million pounds less per team, in net. Total outlays were up about the same amount.

And I don't buy the "a few teams spent" idea. A team like Tottenham, with all its spending, actually contributes a substantial negative to the net after all its sales, so that doesn't warp it. Chelsea's spending was also quite small. Manchester United had the Berbatov signing, and Liverpool with their assortment of half-baked goods, but...

There was still sizable spending from the midtable. Even cheap Everton splashed out on their club record transfer (and yes, I know they did sell a bit to get there).

I just think this idea that it was this major down market this summer is a complete myth not substantiated by the numbers.

 

I was posting right about when the site crashed, my edit apparently came out as a double post?

Anyway, a point I thought to add afterward.

If the changes really were impacted by the economic climate, I don't think you would see the total expenditure go up. Clubs wouldn't want to get into the structured payouts (fearing the money would never come), they wouldn't be able to get the loans (which no doubt financed a good chunk of that), and they wouldn't want to spend before they had sold (which happened plenty).

 

most papers seem to try and shit on arsenal and then moan about the state of other clubs

us english people hate EVERYTHING, miserable cnuts

 

So true, the fans over here were moaning about so much minor shit.

Especially money, even when their cash is worth worth about triple!

 

Actually, Arsenal gets one of the more favorable outlooks in that piece.

The debt is overstated by a large number, but I don't think it matters for the purpose of the article - other than an interest in journalistic accuracy.

The only way it could be right is if we've taken out another 100 million in debts in this new season. Can't think of a reason why we would have.