It is not just about Wenger, it is about salaries and FFP « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. 800,000 visits last month

By Tony Attwood

According to our national press Arsène Wenger his “allowing a rift to develop between himself and Arsenal’s fans after a response to Saturday’s show of dissatisfaction that seemed to imply that their opinions did not really count for that much.”

It is typical media speak – a speak in which it is suggested without question that it is possible to measure the feeling among Arsenal fans.  That point passed over then the accusation that the manager is “allowing a rift to develop” can be explored.

The Independent said, “The fans were frustrated as Wenger’s team laboured to a goalless draw against an Aston Villa side that had lost to each of the Manchester clubs in consecutive weeks”

In one sense they are right – we were all frustrated, as we are every time a lower-table club frustrates us, and we can’t find a way through.

What’s more they pointed out that he was compounding his difficulties by commenting in the same interview on the huge new money that the Emirates airline is pouring into Arsenal.

As he said, he has managed 200 Champions League games so he does know a thing or two.  However football commentary is not based on this – it is based on (at newspaper level) picking detail out, making assumptions and then delivering opinion as if detail and assumptions are the foundations of a new machine that can win every game under the sun.

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As for many blogs they seem to be based on the fact that if only the manager would follow their advice, the club would be top of the league this and every other season.

As the manager told the reporters, “I will not explain every decision I make – you judge the game for the papers, and I sit here and explain to you our game. You are all great managers! I read the newspapers every day and I can tell you that you are always great managers!”

Yes this is a poor start to the season – the worst since 1994/5 when we were very much in decline and we are outside the all important top four.

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So what now?  The word knocking around is that Man City will buy Suarez.  Maybe maybe not.  But the issue is not so much one of buyer and seller but of the increasingly widespread belief that

a) the Premier League will vote in its own financial restrictions which will start next season and

b) the FFP regulations in Europe will have some teeth, and that relying on the lawyers to get around it might not be the best policy.

If either or both happen suddenly Arsenal are in a totally different position – still buying players while many other clubs can’t.   Manchester City are already way outside the FFP regs, and buying any more big names would only make matters worse.  What they have to do, in fact, is the reverse.  They have to start selling.

Traditionally we have always thought of players in terms of the fee paid from one club to another.  But in fact that is now only a minor part of the deal.  A £20m player costs the buying club £5m a year over four years which knocks the FFP calculation back by that amount each year.

But players and their agents know that clubs like Man C can in fact pay anything since they are effectively just part of the PR campaign that is taking the world cup to the middle east.  So having big name stars playing for them is important.  And if that costs £11,000,000 a year in salary, then that is what they pay.   The bill is not £5m a year on the FFP calculator, it is £16m a year.  Indeed I have been reading some commentaries from people who by and large know a little of such matters that the cost of a top player now when you add the four year amortisation to the salary is £22m a year.

Arsenal are not doing as well as any of us would like on the pitch, but the ground is shaking and the earthquake is not far behind.  When the financial landscape changes, everything else changes.

It has already changed once with the new money from Emirates – and looking at the overall picture, as other clubs will start to slip back, we will grow.

That doesn’t mean all is ok now on the pitch – clearly a team that ought to be doing very well is sometimes doing far from that.   But there is still light ahead rather than the dim doom  and gloom portrayed in the press.