While you will find a lot of Arsenal fans ready to bemoan our fate, with the main complaint being that we do not match the ambition and spending power of our big Premier League rivals to really compete for the EPL title and the Champions League trophy, a new report by UEFA shows that Arsenal are actually in an elite group and that every club not in this group are the ones that are really in trouble.
As reported by the Daily Mail there are nine clubs in this group of high earners, with the Spanish La Liga rivals Barcelona and Real Madrid as well as the German Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich and the French champions PSG joining five clubs from the Premier League.
So along with Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Man City, Arsenal are one of this group and the UEFA study suggests that our commercial success and spending power is bad for the game in general as it makes the likelihood of a club like Leicester City doing what they did last season less and less likely.
Most Arsenal fans may not be too bothered about this if only we could use this power to actually win the major honours, but it seems to me that we are among the elite but not reaping the benefits. Another part of the report shows that our league is earning much more than all of the others and I do not think it is a coincidence that we have so many more foreign owners.
Unfortunately for Arsenal I think we have become just a cash cow, so until our ambition for trophies matches our ability to make money, are we any better off being part of this super rich group?
Bob.