Three weeks on and today there are widespread reports in the English papers that Gazidis is leaving... now... mid-season. If that's true, I find it baffling. And I'll admit I was dead wrong about him not jumping mid-season. Palace intrigue!
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/45558978 Confirmed. Gazidis is leaving at the end of October. Maybe I just haven't been paying attention, but the bigger mystery to me here is how this Raul Sanllehi dude has never been mentioned until now? He's a former director of football at FC Barcelona and he's been employed by Arsenal since FEBRUARY!? I can't say I've ever heard mention of him during any of the Gazidis rumblings.
Word is that Ivan’s contract had a clause that he could execute within 30 days of a takeover and get a windfall of 3x salary to leave. That’s a 3m bonus to leave plus he’s getting an extra 1m per year at Milan—no brainer really. I’m not that sad. He’s not been terrible, but not excellent either. I think we will be just fine without him.
A) How does this situation constitute a takeover to trigger such a clause? B) How on earth can debt-laden Milan afford to pay him more than Arsenal? C) Why would they want to?
A) It's called a poison-pill, and is pretty common in takeover defense - depending on how it's drafted, it could be something like "a takeover is defined as X% of stock changing hands" or "all shares are now owned by some dude with a 'stache" B) Milan are being bought out by Paul Singer, who's this right wing billionaire who funds a whole bunch of crazy stuff. Singer's hedge fund, Elliott, is apparently known for its ruthlessness. C) That's a bigger question - apparently Gazidis has relationships with people at Elliott.
Who is Raul Sanllehi? https://www.football.london/arsenal-fc/news/raul-sanllehi-arsenal-news-gazidis-15169131 Who is Vinai Venkatesham? https://www.football.london/arsenal-fc/who-vinai-venkatesham-arsenals-new-15167121 After reading these articles about our two new appointees I can honestly say I'm pretty excited.
OK, but they're not exactly brand new. Sanllehi, at least, has been on the scene for 7 months... supposedly very involved in the transfers during that period. I haven't read a ton about this, but the whole Gazidis leaving thing has the feeling of not being what is presented publicly, and being poised for another shoe to drop. The fact that the CEO position is still vacant, and that the club seems to have split the responsibilities between these 2 gents, seems like a temporary corporate structure to me. Raul as always been a DoF, even if Wenger didn't want that name used. Now they've finally just made that official. Venai has been promoted to Managing Director, presumably with a signifcantly broader portfolio than he had before. I wonder if, because it just wasn't clear if Ivan was staying or going, and because it's mid-season, that the board could not be instantly ready with a new CEO, and so they decided to split the responsibilities between these two, at least temporarily. And I wonder if there isn't a plan to hire a new CEO, or for Josh Kroenke to take that role. But OTOH if it's to be Josh, then why didn't they just install him now? I still think it's weird that Gazidis jumped ship, so soon after he finally got Wenger out, and put in place the "modern" management structure that he so wanted. So I guess he was motivated primarily by greed (for lack of better word) in that he may get something like a big parachute payment from Arsenal, and a bigger wage going forward from ACM. And perhaps motivated secondarily by some lack of seeing eye-to-eye with the Kroenkes, but who knows about that... there's so much silence! Lastly, I'm neither a fan or a hater of Gazidis, but if his parting words to the fans was just a written statement rather than a press conference, that is telling about the man. Couldn't he be arsed to face the journos one last time? Wenger certainly outclassed him in this regard, and many other ways.
Also, over the last 12 months, this club has the feeling of being transferred into the hands of a bunch of outsiders and newbies. OK, not the Kroenkes perhaps, as they've been around for quite a few years now, but virtually everyone below them. I think we can say that this is not your father's Arsenal any more. Those days are long gone and unlikely to ever come back. Sure it's the way of modern sports management and ownership, but it's also a little sad for longtime fans, especially the English ones. Edit: I just listened to the PR clip on Arsenal.com and Venai Venkatesham says he's been at the club for 8 years, so he may not be the best example of a relative noob, but there are plenty of others around him who are.
They've been gone ever since Kroenke and Usmanov came on board. The shareholders have been out for some time. Gazidis leaving? Meh.
True, but I wasn't thinking of the board-level or major shareholders. I was thinking more of the football management team. The arrivals of Sven, Raul, Marcel, and last but not least Unai and his whole coaching team. The departures of Gazidis, Wenger, his coaches (Boro, Colbert, Banfield, Johnson, Peyton...). And several years before that, the departures of the Lewins, Rice, Brady, etc. Shoot, even throw Hill-Wood & Friar in there. You're left with only Bould & Akers as links to the past. Maybe add Per, Freddie & Morrow, in a more minor way, and if you're stretching it a bit. Bottom line: the club management will feel very new & different in Oct.2018. We can only hope that all of these guys end up being good stewards of the club we love so much.
On the plus side, there were rumors that Stan's son, Josh, might transition into the Gazidis role - which gave me concerns over his competency for that role. Not hearing any mention of Josh Kroenke running the team is a big positive, imo.
This doesn't mean it won't happen. They've announced these 2 competent people will be put into roles they are capable of filling. If Josh is gonna run the club, they can make that announcement whenever the time is right. I think this is what Kanonier meant...
I disagree on both counts. From what I've seen, Josh is coming in at Ivan's level, though I don't think he has a CEO title yet he may soon. And if he does come, I think that's a good thing. My hunch is that Gazidis is like Tom Hagen in The Godfather, he's tight with the family but at some level still not in it. The "catalyst for change" and all the rest of it should have been enough to push Wenger out the door the year before he was fired, but the Kroenke's went with Wenger over Gazidis. And contrary to what some fans are saying, Leaving Arsenal is the right move for Ivan. Dealing with the Kroenkes is basically the same as dealing with Amazon, Goldman, or even WalMart as a vendor: they're not necessarily dishonorable businessmen, but whatever you do with them, _always_ get the money. Because one thing you can be completely sure of, is that if the shoe were on the other foot, they would be taking every possible nickel they could get their hands on. And far as Arsenal goes, my guess is this is a good thing for mostly the same reasons. Where we are now, it's very reasonable to think that we'll need be spending 100-300MM GBP over the next 2-4 windows to really make us competitive in the League. When push comes to shove, I just don't think he's going to make that kind of commitment on the say-so of someone who's not in the family. Luckily for us, we've got the management team we need. We just need the buy-in from upstairs.
Yes, that was one of the theories I had put forth. The other shoe that seems like it might drop... at some point.
So you think Sven & Raul are more "in the family"? Or you think that Josh will be in place as CEO before the next transfer window (January)? But even if Josh is CEO by then, isn't he still fundamentally going to need to trust Sven & Raul's transfer ideas? It's hard to imagine Josh has comparable or better knowledge of the European/World football market to call all the shots on those transfers.
I’m sure things are more complicated than we are told, but I see no signs of a real rift here. Gazidis has a great opportunity and would be a fool not to take it I think. So from his side of things, makes total sense Keoenkes not withstanding. From Stans point of view, he seems to be a status quo operator—patiently waiting for opportunity to enact a plan. He doesn’t seem to force anything. But I wonder how happy he was with gazidis. As for replacement, do we even need a ceo? I don’t think Stan’s other sports holdings have one. I suspect Vinai and Raul can handle it just fine. They also have the whole of KSE to lean on when needed.
Ivan was garbage - and I have to say, absurdly overpaid for a company of Arsenal's size. What did he do apart from preside over rate of inflation commercial deals?
This reminds me of this take: Right, but that has nothing to do with Ivan's managerial acumen and everything to do with the rising price of Premier League TV rights. You could hire any passable smart guy outta McKinsey or the like to do that job.— Giantgooner (@GiantGooner) August 21, 2018
Also this: From a financial perspective Ivan Gazidis has not been a bad chief executive at #AFC, just not especially good. Whether his track record merits Milan’s eager pursuit is debatable. If he does leave Arsenal, the club should be able to find a replacement at least as capable.— Swiss Ramble (@SwissRamble) August 23, 2018
Just a note that ivan's situation at Arsenal is not comparable to Levy who is a genuine value creating CEO and part owner of TFC via ENIC. Levy is the operational representative of ENIC. His mission has always been to build the stadium on the back of CL football, to vastly increase the value for the holding company, at which point they probably sell out. Re ENIC - Levy is a substantial stakeholder
I judge him on results. We know Wenger handled the football side. What has Ivan done on the commercial side of note? The growth in the business has been driven by the rising tide and by Wenger bringing consistent CL football. I find his salary absurd
I agree, unless there's stuff going on behind the scenes that we didn't know about. If I were inclined to give Gazidis the benefit of the doubt, I'd point to the acquisition of Stat DNA (which of course we never listened to because Wenger), hiring Shad Forsythe (and the recurring injury situation did get better), bringing in Mislintat and Sanllehi, and some of the money spinning preseason tours. I guess the question then becomes whether you think bringing in Sanllehi, Mislintant, Forsythe, and StatDNA is worth 20 million. The argument could be made that improving training methods and reducing the small 3 week out muscle injuries that happened all the freaking time before 2015 was worth 8 figures by itself. But I'm not sure that I'm inclined to give Gazidis the benefit of the doubt, and I really really dislike Paul Singer and Elliott (who have funded bigots in the past).
No I don't. But I do expect Josh Kroenke to have a formal or informal role at Arsenal, specifically to that end. Ie, Sven and Raul are going to overhaul the team, they are going to have a bunch of players, say a half dozen or so, with price tags attached. And those price tags are going to be more than what has previously been mentioned as available for transfers. Josh isn't going to scout the players but he will give the thumbs up as it relates to the price tags (or not). Then, having gotten the word from Josh, Stan will cut the checks. This is the break from Gazidis, where when push comes to shove Stan wasn't willing to sack Wenger on Ivan's say-so.
I think gazidis was brought in to complement AW. Gazidis is a football guy. He was hired to replace Dein and Edelman and had what looked like a good set of credentials for that purpose (I.e. not just an MBA, but experience in football). Most clubs now have clear lines between football and business. Pool, Chelsea, United have businessmen not football men at the helm. Ivan’s bringing in of the new director setup and overseeing the departure of AW can be seen as a completion of this process. We don’t need a CEO like Ivan whereas Milan in the middle of a “transformation” might be served well by him.