Whatever side of the argument you are on when it comes to the players taking wage cuts I am sure that we all agree that Stan Kroenke should be putting some money into the club.
In fact, there was a solid argument that he put some money into the club before the pandemic hit football but that is a whole other debate for another time.
This is about Arsenal asking the players for money to help the club but the owner not doing the same, it is about morality.
I make no secret of the fact that I am disgusted by the three players that have refused to take pay cuts at Arsenal, I am disgusted by all players at all Premier League clubs that fail to support their clubs at this time but that does not mean that it lets the owners off the hook.
Of course, the owners should dig deep and FIFA has to take that into consideration when assessing financial fair play but even if they do not it should make zero difference.
We are talking about saving clubs here including Arsenal because you can take it to the bank there will come a time when it can no longer sustain itself.
There is also the moral argument, football is a business let’s not kid ourselves but it is built on the local community and its worldwide fanbase, it is a family, in fact, most fans stay more loyal to their club than they do to their spouses. That cannot simply be disregarded based on finances, it is far too emotional for that.
Time is running out, every day that goes by Arsenal will continue to lose money and Stan Kroenke needs to step in sooner rather than later.
Kroenke is no different to the players in my eyes, he has an obligation, more so than the players to help the club out financially otherwise there may come a day when there is no Arsenal football club.
If you think that is being hyperbolic then I suggest you have a look around see and the massive unprecedented events that have taken place this year. Nothing is out of the question anymore.
Certain players have let themselves, the fans and club down, hopefully, Stan Kroenke does not follow suit and take this opportunity to rebuild his image with the fan base and inject some desperately needed funds into the club and show us all, players included, that the owner of Arsenal football club has their backs.
Unless I have it wrong, I thought he had/he is putting some money in? No doubt a loan I am guessing though.
Doesn’t Kroenke usually take money out of Arsenal for what he calls “Consultation” and very rarely puts money in!
He ain’t putting any money in I can guarantee that, it was announced like it was. I would put my house on it that it will be a loan.
Ad Martin, Firstly my huge congrats on this wonderful article and among your best ever for sure! There are so many ponts that your spot on call raises and I have addressed a few of them in my own article which I am finishing off right now and will send to PAT later today. Well said seems inadequate!
Thank you Jon, your words are appreciated.
Under the present circumstances whether Kroenke invests money into Arsenal is totally irrelevant. With governments spending billions, people dying across the world the plight of football clubs is very far down the list. Major companies are making thousands of workers redundant,many others likely to go to the wall with catastrophic consequences for millions of people. Football clubs will need to adapt to the fact they will have reduced match day revenue and in all probability considerably reduced revenue from all other sources as well. Businesses, including football clubs, which are not run well, will fail, and owners, even as rich as Kroenke will struggle to find money to keep things afloat. It should be considered that the value to Kroenke of Arsenal Holdings is not in the football club but in the stadium, which is totally separate from the club.
pat H, while I much agree with the thrust of your post and applaud you for speaking necessary truth, I do dissent on the final line. The value to Kroenke, at least personally, is clearly BOTH the stadium AND the club which has worldwide support and not, mostly, because we have a nice stadium. So THAT part, alone, is not correct.
I very much agree. Although, as I see it, Arsenal have 3 main assets:
1) The squad of players (their value has of course dropped dramatically in the last 5-6 weeks
2) The stadium. The value has also dropped dramatically, and is most likely to drop even further, when the full force of the economic crisis hit
3) The brand. Very difficult to judge the value at this time, but this is for sure a big asset
Call me a cynical person, but I expect kronkie to start putting “his own money in”, once the difference in the wages from the salary cut take effect – wake up and smell the coffee people, we have a owner who, to date has invested zilch into our club and he now has the windfall of the salary cuts to ensure his personal wallet stays firmly shut!!!
ken 1945, Suggest you read the post above from pat H whose take on world financial issues, even those of Kroenke is IMO spot on!
SOON, HOPEFULLY , HE MAY NOT EVEN HAVE ANY MONEY TO PUT IN AND THAT IS WHEN HE WILL GET OUT. Or before, most likely! HE CERTAINLY IS NEVER GOING TO INVEST HIS MONEY IN A FAST DECLINING IN VALUE ENTITY. Not knowingly, as he now knows, at least!
Ken, By the word “expect”, do you mean it literally OR in the sense that he OUGHT to invest. Which one, as they are not the same? I can agree with “ought” but not with “expect” in its true meaning.
Arsenal had a loss of 23,5 m. in the latest full financial year, ending June 19.
Despite that a lot of money was put into not only buying new players but also keeping a lot high earning players. That actually is quite a huge investment by the owner when we were only in the Europa League.
I have no personal interest in how Kroenke is doing, but the repeated attacks seems somewhat unfounded as they are rarely based on insight into the actual figures.
But any investments were made following the “self sufficient” statement that kronkie made.
. So any players bought (mainly by instalments) and contracts offered were under that umbrella statement.
The fact that he lost £23 odd million, was due to him not investing in the club – that was why CL football was/is so important – and yet, to date, it seems he has still not invested outside of that “self sustaining” model he thinks will bring his club back to the top table.
He and the disastrous gazidis, along with, sadly, AW in his last year, have caterpulted this great club into mediocrity and threatened relegation – that’s why he is seen as a parriah by so many Goiners.
….”threatened relegation”?? Come on – get serious.
Apart from that, you make some good comments, which I tend to agree on.
Kroenke made a huge mistake in trusting AW and Gazidis to run the club. The years from around 2008 to 2016 was one long slide downhill. Although it wasn’t always showing in the table, we were doing terribly in the underlying areas like player investment and development.
Now don’t put words in my mouth Anders.
I said AWs last year of course.
As for relegation? Remember that under UE, we were just six points off the bottom three and nine points off a top four spot?
That was something that never happened in the twenty two years under Wwngee/Dein and Wenger/gazidis time, something that always seems to be forgotten.
I know, you only have your eyes on AW’s last year. But I think our problems started much earlier. And I still the relegation statement is over the top 🙂