The biggest gripe of Arsenal fans that go to the Emirates for every game for the last god-knows-how-many years is that they have been paying the highest prices in the world, but have not been rewarded by the ambition of the club on the pitch. The taunts about Arsene Wenger’s sole ambition being to make the Top Four to generate more money for the club rather than actually trying to go the whole hog and win the League.
It was revealed a month ago that the Gunners were going to freeze ticket prices for next season, but that hardly matters as figures released today show that the Emirates generates more matchday revenue than any other club in the world with a total of £101.84 million last year, narrowly ahead of Real Madrid, who made £100.12m from games at the Bernabeu, and Barcelona, with a total of £90.17m. Manchester United are next on the list, generating £87.96m from Old Trafford while Chelsea are sixth with £71.84m made from Stamford Bridge. Liverpool (£57.85m), Manchester City (£43.98m) and Tottenham (£41.83m) make it into the top 10 in eighth, ninth and 10th respectively.
Dan Jones, a partner at Deloitte who compile the yearly figures, said: ‘Chelsea won the Premier League in 2014/15 but off-pitch have been usurped by Arsenal as the top London club in the Money League for the first time since 2009/10, swapping places between seventh and eighth position.
‘Arsenal benefitted from the first year of its new kit sponsorship deal with Puma to drive impressive commercial revenue growth of 34 per cent, and its match-day revenue was the highest of any club in the Money League, and nearly £30m greater than Chelsea’s.’
So Arsenal are earning more and more money every year, but at least we are seeing our club at the top of the Premier League. Do you think that the paying fans on matchday at the Emirates now feel like they are getting value for money?