Bring on Arsenal’s new season!
FFP and how it affects us
Recent news is coming out on how UEFA is relaxing its FFP policy as a response to the current pandemic. Without going into too much detail, basically the proposed change is doubling the number of seasons where clubs are required to balance out (I believe currently it is 3 years/seasons, feel free to correct me on this). From a business perspective this means Arsenal can post losses a bit longer before balancing giving us more time to get back into CL.
Thank God for Europa
The significance of this cannot be understated. Arsenal needs to get back to CL. Using figures from our 2019 Europa finals run, Arsenal generated roughly £30M. In comparison, Inter generated roughly £50M and they didn’t even get out of the group stages of CL. This huge difference is a major reason to our lack of competitiveness in the transfer market. Our ticket into Europa is a welcomed one but we desperately need to get back to CL in order to bridge the already widening gap.
How are we looking?
We are starting the new season being financially worse than last season. Lower overall revenues, Europa Cup failure, and player contracts renewals are some issues that the club is facing. I would also point out we still are paying for Pepe which brings me to our silver lining, our recruitment team. Using the model, they came up for Pepe’s payment and the purchase of Martinelli. They have shown the capabilities to manoeuvre around financial obstacles and identify great talents.
Currently the market has somewhat dropped meaning it is a great time to buy players at cut prices. Chelsea is a great example of a club that is taking advantage of the situation with the purchase of 3 good players in a short period of time. Without any direct investments however (which is regulated) we are realistically limited to bargain buys, but at least this time we have a team that looks to have a good success rate at identifying required players akin to the days of David Dein.
Our upcoming season looks promising!
ArsenalAfroArmy
I’m looking forward to the next season with hope and joy of not seeing Ozil around the stadium on match days.(The last time he was at the stadium, he got a back injury sitting in the stands, poor fella!) Some attacking football with Willian/Pepe, defensive improvement with Saliba / Gabriel (as he prefers us) and seeing the backs of Torrera, Guendozi and hopefully Xhaka (or as a squad player at the most), ESR will be back, Party / Docoure might join us. Big man Emi in the goal, lots to look forward to. And finally Leeds are back in the EPL, waiting for the day Nott Forest join the elite.