Arsenal Should Be Punished Over And Over And Over Again by Dan
So the next debate regarding the ‘big six’ is what (if any) repercussions should they have for clearly breaching FA rules.
Reports vary from if they will simply be welcomed back by the other 14 clubs who business wise might feel it’s counterproductive to antagonise the situation.
There’s talk though that some of those sides are going to be ruthless and use this as an opportunity to take advantage. If, for example, they could enforce points deductions suddenly it increases their own chances of qualifying for Europe.
It would be ironic after all the greed they showed if this saga concludes with ‘the Founding Members’ losing money.
I don’t think any Governing body will want to kick these clubs while they are down, but the more I hear all these cringeing apologies, the less I’m forgiving and the more I want to see some consequences.
I have worked with young children with behaviour difficulties. To help manage their behaviour you are taught not to ask them to say sorry. The idea being that sorry is just a word. Instead you want to encourage a child to reflect.
Why is that person sad with you?
How can you fix the situation?
Instead of words, what can you do to make amends?
Because deep down, if you really have regret, have empathy, you will want to put things right.
That’s what I had to teach young children. These are middle-aged well-educated men. Yet like a toddler they are saying, ‘well, I did say sorry’.
In what other company can you read and agree to a policy and procedure, not follow it and there be zero consequence? If there is zero action to your policies being disregarded, why write them in the first place?
There is a fear that any sanctions would be more of a punishment to supporters, managers and players. If I hear that come out of one of the owners’ mouths, then I will be fuming. Don’t now suddenly get a moral compass when as recently as Sunday you didn’t care what your supporters think.
That’s why us Fans will get over it. Remember gooners woke up Monday morning thinking we were about to be prostituted to a midweek League where we get paid 350 million to do nothing. With that once a reality, I am sure we could cope with say UEFA kicking us out of the Europa League.
It’s correct that so many stakeholders’ hands are clean of any guilt. Yet lets learn from our mistakes. On one hand we are moaning that these clubs thought they could get special treatment, but then some want some leniency shown because your scared to upset the status quo.
There is and never has been any case where a club avoids sanctions just because it might offend supporters. Leeds United, Portsmouth, Bolton, Wigan, Bournemouth, etc, have all previously been deducted points for going into administration. That’s punishing fans, isn’t it?
The men and women in the stands are not accountable for a club’s finances. What’s worse? Struggling for cash or trying to kill the national game?
So fans of Arsenal Man United, Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea and Spurs are not my first concern. If the idea of being banned from the Champions League worries Chelsea or City fans, then that’s just a small example of the anxiety the likes of an Everton Fan have had to deal with.
Forget a short-term ban, these 6 owners were willing to leave their peers with nothing. If they had got their way a new pyramid would have left the rest with nothing to play for. So, versus that, I’m sure we can take whatever slap on the wrist we get if that means the likes of Stan Kroenke is put in his place.
Only he knows if there are any legal complications about withdrawing from a concept you signed a contract for.
Any compensation won’t come out of the Americans pockets but probably the already limited transfer kitty we have. That can’t be controlled, that’s his prerogative if he wants to put his hand in the till to pay off his own affairs.
Something tells me though that the Kroenke Family, while content to spend money to make this problem go away, will feel less comfortable if he perceives income is being withheld from him
For example he will be calculating huge revenue if we win the Europa League, and his ego might not take that money going in someone else’s pocket. I would love it just to see his face.
Some things are bigger than Football. These 6 men being held accountable is bigger than our sporting ambitions.
If like me, you think it’s fairly obvious they are not sorry one iota, then you need to get their attention. Hurt them in the only place they care about, the wallet.
Let them watch UEFA money fall from their grasp. There would be something beautifully potent that the clubs who wanted to be rewarded without sporting success would actually earn something on merit and have it taken away. Then they might know how Leicester and West Ham were feeling last Sunday.
The best part of any serious punishment is surely these owners would have to accept it. It would be a PR disaster if they got their lawyers to appeal, even if you have a strong case in your favour.
They have said they are sorry, that they hear us. If you’re sorry you accept that you deserve to be punished.
I don’t think there will be any sanctions because the other parties, while wronged in this instance, are equally as greedy when it suits them. They benefit from not upsetting the big 6 any more than they have to.
In an ideal world though, I would throw every sanction at them and even then, it wouldn’t be enough.
Nothing will be enough to get rid of the stench around Stan Kroenke after he made 55 staff redundant, knowing full well that he had this Super League up his sleeve.
Nothing can rebuild the trust of insisting football had to be played during Covid for our mental health and escapism, when the whole time you were using a Pandemic as an experiment. That’s sick.
Nothing can hide your deceit. Whatever your opinion of Ozil, he was publicly made out to look greedy for not accepting a pay cut. Like him or not, Ozil was correct. He wanted clarification of where the money was going because he simply didn’t believe Stan Kroenke. How many fans did he manipulate in that situation?
Do you want the Big 6 Punished?
If so, how?
Be Kind In The Comments
Dan
Well, look at how Arsenal FC has been drained of sources of income lately:
Lost tons of money for stupendous contracts and stupendous transfers
No more competition money
No more revenue because of COVID
Those 3 reasons are already huge drains of wealth for Kroenke. We are not competitive and yet we have players on competitive wages.
Protests are always good, but even better is to vote with your wallet. Stadium is still closed, which is good, but don’t buy Arsenal merchandise nor don’t spend money to watch Arsenal on TV. You can use streams if you must watch. Use your old shirts for support.
All these things will make Arsenal value decrease (United’s value decreased 150 million in few days alone). And if the value of the club decreases, this will force Kroenke to sell. Arsenal is his financial business, and he will treat it as such. He won’t have a business which doesn’t make him money.
At the moment we are valued a lot more than what Kronke paid for his shares. If our value decreases, he can’t risk NOT to sell as he will want to sell the club making profit.
Too late for me with the summer coming i needed few t-shirts tops and ordered Arsenal ones sorry.☹️
We are all attached to arsenal for various reasons mostly it’s out of love. There is always a connection between us and the clubs we support it goes beyond just wanting kroenke out. I can’t see how you can stop fans from seeing there teams play or purchasing a New Jersey to be honest that’s a dead course
There could be other ways certainly this is not realistic
Whether they are punished or is one thing but the certain is those clubs are still victims of their own owners, Imagine OGS didn’t know a thing about it, but to watch his own team robbed of that second place after all the hard didn’t sit well with, or let’s 20 points are deducted from all the teams Arsenal got relegated. Who are the victims here? Kroenke who doest give a damn or we the fans who really care? Finally I agree with you 100% on Ozil’s part he was the victim of standing for justice. He was treated like a trash after wasting best part of his career with us.
Quick googling:
Kroenke’s first stake at club was roughly 10% – for £65m.
Then he bought smaller quantities of shares, Fiszman’s and Bracewell-Smiths’ remaining shares etc. and poof, he already owned roughly 67% of Arsenal. So far he hadpaid approximately paid £420-430 millions for 67% of the club.
Kroenke paid £550m for Usmanov’s shares – 30% and the rest few percenters were forced to sell, roughly for £52m.
So ROUGHLY, he has paid £1,032 billion for Arsenal. And based on how much Usmanov sold his shares, would give Arsenal value of £1.8 billion. So selling now would give him a rough 800 million profit.
But he won’t sell. Only way him to sell is to decrease the club’s value. If it decreases steady to what Kroenke has paid so far, he HAS to sell.
As recent as a week ago Arsenal was valued at 2.3 billions.
@siamois
Which currency?
If I was a potential buyer I would argue that the Value of Arsenal has gone down since Usmanov sold.
Good question ! 1.8 2.3 after converting it makes sense.
It’s a difficult one because the clubs were threatened with punishment if they broke away, but in the end, they all pulled out of the ESL. So can you still punish them for complying?
By the sound of things, the ESL was cooked up by those right at the top (owners, and some CEO’s), so would it be fair to punish the clubs, which is effectively punishing the managers, players, and fans?
There needs to be more of a long-term punishment, if any. Find a way of getting these billionaire sole owners out, and have fans partly own the clubs. This offers protection for the clubs, because we simply have too have many powerful owners/CEO’s who actually know nothing of football, it’s culture and the fans. Just imagine if Arsenal were not based in London, because you could bet your bottom dollar Kroenke would be relocating the club there for the extra moola!
No need, because Arsenal are already struggling financially. If we force them to the limit, they might not buy new players
The worst case scenario is Arsenal cease all operations until they find a buyer. You could try the hard way, but I don’t think someone is willing to pay 1+ billion for a football club in this difficult situation
The Super League issue was basically adding a few more games to the Champions league schedule and rewarding one or two teams who had recent high coefficients.
Nothing more nothing less.
All the league games and domestic competitions were to proceed as normal.
Rewarding the few is normal in the English football pyramid. The reason it is called the Pyramid is bevause the vast majority receive virtually nothing while the privileged few Arsenal included get the majority of the rewards.
Arsenal has there for been guilty of unprecedented greed for decades well before Stan came along. and the fans who support the club by association are guilty of maintaining that greed.
So Arsenal fans criticizing the Super League are all total hypocrites because they have supported the greed based pyramid for decades.
You are not a true supporter. We think differently in England to you Americans.
You’re forgetting a key element, which is the most important one, no competition!
For the founding members there would be ZERO ramifications for performing badly. Lose all your games every season (which could well happen to Arsenal given that level of competition every game), and it doesn’t matter! You’re back in next season. There would be no incentive to perform.
who cares? For me, the PL and the way the money is divided would ensure Arsenal would continue to strive to be the best they can be even if they would be assured of participation in the Superleague which was only ever going to be a 20 team mid-week competition.
We can not argue on the one hand that the Super League is greed-based and on the other hand claim that all of a sudden these same clubs would lose interest in getting their slice of the billions floating around in the PL. The best performing teams in the PL get the most money (roughly).
We know Wyoming we are a bunch of hypocrites with no class living in squalid houses/ towerblocks..as you elegantly put it yesterday or the day before!
Wyoming again you are wrong. It is a pyramid, because the base consists of the many hundreds of thousands of junior players around the world. The pyramid rises with reducing numbers, up through the many amateur players of all ages, who play for physical activity and enjoyment, semi professional players, who also hold down jobs, professional players, who make their income from football and at the top of the pyramid (the pointy end), are the elite highly paid players in the top leagues.
Without the bottom of the pyramid, the top will wither and die. There is only so much money available for football and these wealthy few wanted to take more from the pot to the detriment of the many and the development of the game below the elite.
There has to be a change in ownership structure embedded in law to protect the future of Football. It’s more that the American owners are perverted self-serving owners when in reality it’s the supporters who are the meaning of the clubs. No love. Football is big enough to deserve time in Parliament and some changes in law. Supporters should be able to own a percentage of clubs at the top levels. Owners must be willing to give up some of their control to supporters…which has to be embedded in law. It would be nice if Kroenke Fd off.
You should’ve punished UEFA instead. Their new bloated European competition format made the big clubs lose a lot of money and forced the big clubs to make a drastic action
Imagine if you were one of the big clubs’ owners and you invested hundreds of millions to build a star-studded squad that the fans always crave for. But your profits from the European competitions get smaller every year, because UEFA keeps increasing the number of participants
More games, more income for the clubs surely.
As I mentioned previously, We must all individually make our own minds up because without pain for us as supporters there will be no change.
1) Do the sIx morally deserve to be punished by the EPL and/or UEFA? Looking at the EPL for example – it never proposed to change anything barring adding THEIR OWN Euro competition. It was perfectly acceptable if the ECL ran alongside it – they just would not enter. After all – we run the Emirates Cup and only invite our friends, also to make extra revenue.?
We are an independent business, and is it our fault if we are so important that our mere absence from the CL would render it meaningless? And if so surely this only proves our point – We ARE essential to the success of European football, therefore we SHOULD get the biggest slice of the pie. If Villa, Devil’s Advocate but you get the point.
2) Are we prepared to suffer for a considerable period of time to remove our owner? Many clubs recover from sanctions – most recently think Rangers, but it’s not guaranteed, and we would be a long time gone, perhaps never to return to our former greatness. Kroenke is known for his greet, but he is also spiteful. If he cant find a buyer, he may dig in and wait until we come back. He doesnt need the money, and we are his playthings. Google some of the morally reprehensible things his businesses get up to and you will understand.
Lets remember, we are the club but we had nothing to do with, none of us had any idea what was going on, the players had no idea what was going on. The only persons that for sure did because they were doing it for themselves 100% was the owners. For me the clubs are not at fault but the owners are, so for me the owners need sanctions galore, fines galore, restrictions galore and forced to give part of their ownership or at least 51% of any board or voting rights to the fans so the fans/club are run by the fans. If the owners dont like it tough. The fans shouldn’t be involved in financial gains and loss but has a say in the running of the club. The owners have far too much power for something that is powered by fans.
Live in the real world. No government or any other body are going to bring in legislation to force private companies to give up any part of their ownership. The ramifications of such would effect businesses as a whole not just football clubs. Someone posted that Kroenke might be vindictive and that should be a serious thought. If you look at the structure of Arsenal Holdings you will see that the Football Club is a different entity to the stadium. It well might be that fans get their wish and Kroenke sells the football club but I believe he has long term plans for the stadium and is unlikely to sell regardless of possible sanctions. The Kroenke family is worth about £16 billion so he can hold on to the club for as long as he likes. You say that the fans should not be involved in gains and losses but you forget that if they had the 51% control of the club they certainly would be responsible for the financial oversight of the club. But its never going to happen. Kroenke could and should be much more involved with the club and the buck for success or failure stops with him. Lets hope that this SL thing makes him more aware of his responsibilities to both the club and the supporters.
No one person should be allowed full control of history and clubs that are for the fans. He has no connection to this club at all but financial. OUT!
Banned from European competitions for 1 season all 6. Yes, would hurt us but, as you say, will hopefully make them reflect by hurting their pockets..
But by that logic you would never punish a club
As I said was it a Leeds , Pompey , Cherries ,.Bolton , etc fault that they went into administration?
What about Seria A , was it fair on fans to.have team relegated?
Should we not send a player off because it’s ruining it for the fans
You would end up never punishing a club
DAN With the notable exception of your wrong final paragraph about Ozil I liked your sensible article.
I will however concentrate on that final wrong paragraph to effectively make my REAL point about this whole charade of a superleague. In Kroenke , Glazers, FSG etc we fans got what we deserved when WE, all of us, chose to turn a blind eye to the obscenity of players wages and the leech agents and carried on calling for more expensive and better paid players to come in.
WE, all of us , are guilty too! WE, all of us,(myself included) are hypocrites, because we were quite content to turn a DELIBERATE blind eye to the corrupt way that football has been going for decades – accelerated many times since the Prem began 29 years ago – instead of insisting and fighting for a game that was sensibly, financially solvent and morally run and administered. WE, all of us, moaned but we DID nothing.
And so WE, all of us , have now reaped what we have sown, in what has transpired this week.
I have been a voice, almost though not entirely alone, in the wilderness in constantly calling on JA(and elsewhere) for a return to the times when players and their agents did not hold clubs(which means we fans) to ransom. Such as Aubas new contact, Ozils contract, the proposed Ramsey new contract, (that in the end did not happen as he wanted more still ) And all top clubs can say the same, only the names are different.
A moral and decent person , when things happen which they do not like, reflects on his/ her own culpablity in the crisis and asks him/her self what they could and should have done differently. We fans should and could have never stood for this constant wage increase and constant more money coming into the game , only to go directly to grossly greedy top players and their scumbag agents.
We SHOULD have stood together and refused to sanction , indeed to cause and encourage this immorality. But we CHOSE not to stand and fight. We turned a blind eye and we were thus culpable , all of us , me included. Now we must reap what we have helped to sow. This is where we are today.
I will be submitting an in depth article in the next few days, when I have more time than right now, to expand on what we , all of us , should and could do to right this wrong that has been going on for decades This weeks debacle was in a way predictable, if we only had the foresight to see it.
It was inevitable when you are dealing with people who care ONLY for money and greed and not for the game. This greed includes MANY of our present and past great players and lesser ones.That is the sober reality we should face head on and not pretend otherwise. WE, all of us , are guilty!
Well said jon fox we are all to blame
Now we want to put the blame on the owners , the way football is going it is not sustainable it as being bubbling under the surface for years. We all want a sugar daddy at our clubs but when it goes wrong we all become self-righteous and blame anyone but our self
So my advice to all is forget about it
And move on all this hate brings on high bood pressure. The next owners will make kroenke look like a Saint
All this will pass.
First arsenal game 1972 against Chelsea.
Jon
Well put. The only way out now will be a change in the law re-ownership. Will it happen…..maybe many years down the line? Me and you may be watching on the great TV in the sky. Being owned by heartless beings like Kroenke, or Hedge Funds, or faceless oligarchs in this year of 2021, shows how little humanity has progressed. The law needs to allow supporters to own a percentage of a club and if the owners like Kroenke don’t like it, they can sell to real human beings who have blood in their veins and ethics in their hearts.
The best comment on this tread with Laurie.
Jon may your days be long.
We could get punished from both sides as Perez of RM has just said that none of the 6 Super Leavers has actually left yet and if they try to will be in breach of their signed contracts. Looks like we are on for a bit of a bun fight.
I hope we get sued massively
I don’t think the clubs should be fined or otherwise punished. But every club owner who were involved should be heavily punished by the governing football bodies. With hefty fines going to grass roots football and clubs that need it most! Maybe then they would reflect on the damage The Super League would have done to everyone but those who were involved?
BTW, Kronke has still not addressed the Arsenal fans with any sort of apology or explanation as far as I’m aware? What a jerk!!
#kronkeout
You might not be following Arsenal’s news then.
Arsenal has issued an apology and say sorry even though we fans count it as hollow.
And if you want personal Kroenke’s apology then you’re mistaken cos he has never come forward to talk about Arsenal and he never even talk about the SL before he signed, so don’t expect him to issue a personal apology after he withdrew from it.
When Arsenal did something wrong, we criticise him, so if Arsenal apologise, we should know he did that too.
But still support you on your Kroenke’s out comment even though I’m personally tired of saying it cos nobody can make it happen expect himself(Real world we live in).
That way my point. At least Liverpool’s owner addressed the fans personally because this goes beyond what has gone before! Ktonke wouldn’t have a moral compass for doing the right thing let alone the decency and personal guilt..
I respect him for being honest
What’s the point of saying sorry when he knows that we all know he’s not sorry.
They should all be kicked out of both the CL and EL right now as well as being banned from the competition for a season or two. And I think deducting 20 PL points from each club would be fair. Also, they should all pay massive transfer-budget-hurting fines. Say 100 million pounds each. That would be fair.
However, the ultimate justice would be relegation to League 2 and a ten-year ban from European competitions.
They were about to destroy football as a game and a lot of football clubs, they deserve heavy justice.
I’d go on but I don’t like getting banned.
Sure sure punish the club, players, fans for the greed of one freaking person. You just proved there is a good reason why the average person isn’t in a position of power.
Ackshay
Thank you for seeing the bright light.
Sometimes when I see some comments, I think to myself that, many people here haven’t been in a powerful position cos if they are, they will know most of them dine together even after looking like enemies to the public.
He wants the 6 clubs to be suspend for 2years from Euro completion but forget to think of people who will subscribe to watch Westham vs Porto, Everton vs Sevilla etc.
Those big 6 will pull more TV subscriptions against same team which will generate income for skysport and UEFA.
Have you ever seen 6 big clubs been relegated at once in same season?
And to me, I don’t expect any fine from FA cos they said, the 6 big clubs will be punished if they were to play in SL.
The big 6 withdrew and yet you want them to be fine?
Is like my son telling me he’s going to live in Scotland forever and I said, he will be disowned if he did. Will I still disown him after he comply with me and come back?
Moreso, FA need the 6 teams to be strong in EPL, without them, nobody will rate the league and the league will be worst than Eredivisie.
The best thing to do is for UEFA and FA to reduce the wage cap and put limit to transfers, FFP must come in strong now.
Simple – Change the Premier League rules such that ALL TV revenue is split equally between the 20 teams. Currently the Big Six get much more of the overseas TV monies. Hit them in their pockets.
At the discussion with selected Arsenal supporters groups, Vija and Josh Kroenke tried to calm the fans with more BS.
I’m an overseas supporter and I don’t want to see rotational friendlies with Arsenal playing Barcelona and the other gang of eleven, rather than a “cold Tuesday night in Stoke”. Stoke are in the Championship at the moment, yet I would be up for a cup game against them because of the history of the clubs and the competitions.
There was no apology for where Arsenal is now, compared to where the Club was when KS&E got involved.
I am sick of hearing from “the organ grinder’s monkeys, instead of from the organ grinder himself, Stan Kroenke. He avoids the heat and puts others under the gun, the gutless wonder.
Have you seen him addressing Arsenal even when there is no heat?
It shows, he only want people to run Arsenal for him while he keep his long distance.
So you can’t blame him now when there is heat.