The pricing policy at Arsenal Football Club probably looks a lot different when you are raking in something along the lines of £8 million a year as our manager Arsene Wenger does. And the fact that he does not even have to pay to go and see any football match he feels like hardly gives him the right point of view to see how the disgruntled fans feel about being fleeced in order to follow our football heroes.
But even so, I would have thought all the anger and frustration that the Frenchman has seen from the Arsenal fans recently, especially in the nine years when the club did not win a trophy, would have made him a bit more cautious about dealing with our complaints and more reluctant to dismiss them.
Not so, because the Evening Standard has reported Wenger’s thoughts on all the recent talk about ticket prices and TV money and despite us regularly being told that the Gunners are the most expensive team to go and see, Wenger seems to think that we are getting a great deal.
He said, “It is a very complicated subject. How do you decide what is the right level of ticket prices? First of all [you look at] your attendance and then you are being compared many times to foreign clubs. I don’t think we are on the same level ground as foreign clubs.
“For example, Bayern Munich paid one Euro for their ground whereas we played £128 million for our ground. In France they pay nothing at all for their stadium, they pay nothing at all for their maintenance.
“We pay absolutely everything ourselves so we have to generate more revenue. It is true we get more television income, that is down to the audience and success but you know as well that it is down to the pressure of the market to pay for the players with a higher price and out expenses will come up straight away to increase their wages.
“After that you want the ticket prices to be as comfortable as possible for our fans. I looked at the comparisons, our cheapest prices is cheaper than anywhere in London. Our most expensive price is a fraction higher than the other clubs in London. Our most common ticket price is lower than many places in England. I don’t think that we have a massive problem on that front.”
No mention of the massive cash reserves that the club has built up there I see or the fact that we would be a lot happier paying the high prices if we could see the money being spent on players rather than put in a big pile to earn interest.
Wenger also spoke about the planned protest from Leicester fans on Sunday and the possibility of Gooners joining in. And once again the boss seems badly out of touch. He reckons that any protest should occur before or after the game, with the pretty weak sounding reason of us missing valuable football. It seems to me, however, that this sort of protest, like the one by Liverpool fans last week, is the only way to really get the club’s attention.
The Leicester fans’ protest is not even about money as much as it is about football fans being badly treated and even completely ignored by the powers that be. Has Wenger now completely lost touch with us little people and will that mean he loses even more support from the long suffering Arsenal faithful?
Silent Stan is Wengers boss.
Wenger has NEVER spoken badly about a boss in his career as a manager, NEVER!!!
Wenger will not point the finger of blame on Silent Stan and blame him, instead he will take the blame on himself and try to keep the harmony in the team instead of causing rifts to happen.
Arsenal transfers prior to Silent Stans yesman Gazidis…
Wenger and Dein: Henry and Wiltord, both record transfers for Arsenal.
Wenger on his own and stadium debt already applied: Arshavin, another record transfer.
Wenger and Gazidis: Made a silly £40mil and £1 bid, never been done by Wenger before. Signings such as Gervinho and Podolski… not record transfers and we sold our best players.
Any idiot can see the pattern.
Silent Stan takes over and installs his yes man and then AFC stop spending to build up cash reserves and as such build up AFC value as a business and thus leading to higher loans being taken against Silent Stans wealth.
His wealth will increase with extra cash coming from ticket sales.
Wenger will not speak out against his boss.
What on earth do people think will happen? Idiots will blame toe 1st person they think off while the intelligent will go “Hang on a minute, this never happened before, what caused Wenger to change so drastically???”
How many times will we hear £40 mil and a pound?! Educate yourself a bit, will ya? I legal terms, when a value has to me higher than a certain amount, one symbolic unit is added, in this instance a pound. (I’m a lawyer, I should know)
So because Arsenal believed the clause in Suarez’s contract said any offer above £40 mil triggers the release clause they offered what any sensible person would do. Why would you pay £50mil if £40,000,001 automatically triggers it? Oh yes, cos it’s not your money…
Everyone crying about spending money and hiring managers like Klopp..here you go, see whats happening to United and Liverpool.
My biggest problem with Arsenal fans is, most of them are as delusional as the manager himself. Be critical, but be fair and objective if you must. AKB or AOB rants is just a waste of bandwidth.
“How many times will we hear £40 mil and a pound?! Educate yourself a bit, will ya? ”
It happened, it got turned down, it has never happened previously for Wenger, educate yourself will ya?
Should I point at how Nasri signed a new contract before Arsenal signed him and Wenger paid a higher price to get him and didn’t moan about it?
Is that the man who increases a bid by £1 because he thinks there is a legal obligation?
Or does it sound like the tactic of Gazidis who is there to save as many £££ as he can???
When have I cryed about Wenger and saying we need Klopp? Trying to inject obvious statement to make yourself sound clever? I am backing Wenger, I am backing a ‘free Wenger’ who is able to bid what he thinks is right for players… you know, like he use to!
I do not believe a different manager will do any better because THE BOARD WILL BE THE SAME.
you may be a lier… I mean lawyer but all that means is you know how to twist words to confuse people which is happening all the freaking time in the courts, you speak in legalese and assume others are speaking the same BS language where in reality people speak English and as such not having the same meaning.
People don’t believe me?
Have a look at the word ‘Person’ in Blacks Law dictionary.
In legalese a ‘Person’ is a piece of fiction which can be applied to a company, not referring to the ‘human being’.
Lawyers are nothing more than satans sperm (if satan was real), if people connected as human beings rather than the current system of contracts then we wouldn’t have so much strife in this world.
Nice to see you brag about being part of what is wrong in this world! Lawyers are worse than Bankers, who got them off the hook after all those bailouts and corruption?
Learn to be a human will ya?
Good one man! I wasn’t ranting about you though, but that £40+1 has been so many times mentioned by the fans and media for the wrong reasons. It’s irrelevant and not even an argument against Wenger or the board. And again – saving money has nothing to do with it. You don’t go to the shop paying twice for a pint of milk, do you?
Agree with you on lawyers, that’s why I left it for startup life.
@midkemma and aldo ……… Your arguementative rants are way off the chart!….knock yourselves out!
Woooo we get our own leage for arguments, i need to increase ticket prices to match my new standing 😛
I think the offer of £40 million for suarez was not a derisory low price as has been suggested. At the time Suarez was part way through a 10 match ban and had a very bad disciplinary record for biting, racial abuse etc. He also appeared to have burnt his boats at Liverpool. He was a risk, not immediately available to play due to ban, possibly not available to play in future due to possible future bans, possibly disruptive element in team. £40 million could have been a bad buy. At the time I thought £40 million was a bit high, for the above reasons.
This is just more proof that wenger couldn’t give a Castlemain XXXX about the Arsenal fan’s!
The best way for the fan’s to protest is in the stadium and in the face of the deluded one. ???
What’s he supposed to say, trash the club that pays his dues? Perhaps Wenger could be right about the economics of the club, I just do not know for certain… but even if he was wrong, do we really expect him to bash Arsenal in the media? Not Arsene!
He should just shut the f up. He talks too much, way too much about non-football stuff. He has an opinion about everything.
He should just concentrate on the next match and how to prepare the team and what tactics to use and that is it.
All he needs to do is win. The rest is BS.
Thank you. He’s a freaking football manager for goodness sake not a sky sports pundit.
Isn’t it easier to protest against the deluded Silent Stan by making an appointment with his bank manager… you know, hit him where it hurts 😛
Oh and one thing Fatboy, please show me a real life piece of evidence that shows Wenger bashing his boss.
I am not asking if it is right or wrong of Wenger to support his boss, just show me a piece of evidence to prove Wenger is the one making the choices and not the OWNER.
I will re-evaluate my opinion if I ever see a piece of evidence to say Wenger doesn’t like spending rather than Silent Stan doesn’t like spending.
Best way to protest is to withdraw vocal support and stay totally silent for 90 minutes. Only than the owners will realise the value of the fans instead of being taken for granted. They will also realise that the fans truly are the 12th man any team cant do without!
Hahaha ???
Are you suggesting that the fan’s stay extra quite in the library? ? ? ? ?
It may be too quiet fatboy, but it’s Highbury that was the library.
lol, are we not known as the library as Fatboy Gooney pointed out ^.^
Silent Stan will hear all those chings of pounds in his head so it will never be quiet for him…
If or when we can’t win the league is the time to demonstrate not now. Half the scousers are on the rock and roll anyway I so their priority is to put grub on the table not watching Liverpool.
I think it’s high time Stan Kroenke should be made to sell his Arsenal majority Shares to a Chinese passionate football investor or Alisher Usmanov who looks to have the passion for Arsenal’s titles success than to be using Arsenal as the Cash Cow and be milking her every season by taking away money from her under whatever pretext.
Arsenal MUST be set free from the shackles of Silent Stan. That is important if Arsenal are to move forward in titles winning on regular basis. Since when have Arsenal won the title last and even again reach the Ucl final? And Stan didn’t see anything wrong with that fallings to do something positive over it? This guy has no ambition for Arsenal going forward from the unacceptable titles winning position they are as it’s glaringly seen. He rather would leave things to chances and be making his money gains at Arsenal.
We shouldn’t be blaming the Boss too much. Because they say, he who pays the piper dictates the tone of the music he likes. The Boss will either say, Yes Sir to Stan or leave his Job for him to find another manager who will do his job as he wants it done. The Boss has even tried for Arsenal as he has spearheaded the building of the Emirates Stadium for us. And at the same time continues to manage Arsenal very well by keeping us in the top 4 in the table for unprecedented number of seasons that has been making to qualify to be playing in the Ucl every season. He has been mostly getting relatively unheraled talented players for Arsenal and latter turn them to top quality for Arsenal. Not until of recent seasons he could signed the finish article of top quality products of Ozil and Sanchez when their signings money was released to him by Stan, if I must perceive events within the hierarchy decision making at the club.
The fans should protest
against the obscene
salaries players receive.
70 to 150,000 quid a week
even if they don’t play or if they do play
they can play badly and still get paid !!!
Arsenals wage bill is up to 191 million quid p/year.
The players are all just plain greedy ba##ards.
However at the end of the day it’s down to supply and demand.
Right now there are 90,000 fans on the Arsenal season ticket
waiting list all prepared to pay what ever the club charges.
Can’t see any changes any time soon…
Seriously, what annoys me is we’re thinking of giving Wilshere a new contract, for DOING NOTHING ! We always raise the salaries of players that don’t deserve a higher wage.
@midkemma……. U’ve failed to realize that all the powers of transfer , the treasury , the management is still being governed by wenger
u can’t tell me stan is everyting at arsenal… And is holding back all the cash …..
Once u are stingy, u are stingy
if u are otherwise, u won’t be able to cope with that (unless ofcourse u are promised 8mil per yr….woop!….that’s HUGE and Irresistible right?)
Personally, what Wenger said was news to me. Bayerns ground for a quid, French teams no costs at all!! Puts the rationale for prices a little more in perspective and if what he says is correct (don’t really expect it to be wrong given the subject) it sounds like our tickets are reasonable….in London terms. Yes I know we have tickets that are the most expensive but that’s not what you HAVE to pay.
I wonder how many of you actually go to the ground…those that do and fork out I can understand, but if you don’t what are you moaning about?? Shall we move onto the price of cinema tickets, downloading a sky film and paying extra for HD, the iPhone (more than half a season ticket at AFC)…
Regarding the 5 minute ban at start of match, if it is taken up by all fans, the following will happen. Fans enter turnstiles but do not go through to seats. Enclosed areas behind seats fill up so turnstiles closed and fans kept outside for very real safety reasons. Five minutes after kick off, fans start going to their seats and turnstiles open. By the time sixty thousand fans are seated it is half time.
Team comes on pitch to silence, after five minutes fans start going to their seats, no atmosphere no home advantage.
This is a must win game for Arsenal and our title hopes, us fans need to get behind the team from before the start and hope we start well and go on to win.