a mere pittance to the huge cache of shekels we are piling up in the European Super League Champions League
It would be a nice trick to pull off to get players worth salaries of £24m more by paying transfer fees of £24m less. But the amortisation of the existing squad is already there so there are only two ways to reduce it by £24m in year one: 1) reduce our planned transfer fee spend by £120m in that year 2) sell players for more than their book value.
We're pretty awful at #2. I don't think #1 is entirely unreasonable. I'd be more than happy for us to strategise our window roughly along the lines of: - £70-80m on one genuinely quality player who will command wages in excess of £300k per week. - £20m x 2 on two promising youngsters, unlikely to be on high wages. - Total £120m. Across one 3-year PSR cycle, that will see our wages increase by circa £5.2m in Y1, then £10.4m in Y2, then £15.6m in Y3. With money saved through continuing our pursuit of relatively cheap youngsters instead of overpaid middling established players who don't get us anywhere (and are impossible to sell for a profit), that brings us to a total increase of circa £30m in wages across 3 years. Add in normal increases for new contracts/bonuses etc. and we're well within the 3-year total increase of circa £70m. This is clearly entirely possible, I just don't get why we don't do it. As DH recently pointed out, there is a huge disconnect between the transfer fees we pay and the wages those players are then put on. One is not an indication of the other at all. So whereas Virgil Van Dijk is signed for £70m and earns in excess of £220k per week, we sign Richarlison and Solanke for barely £10m less and their wages are circa £90k. This is the gap we need to close imo.
What is the reason for this, just out of curiosity? Because you'd surely expect Arsenal's commercial income to be significantly higher than what it is, surely. Especially given the differences between Spurs and Arsenal in the last couple seasons.
I'd have thought they are pretty obvious. We have a multi-purpose venue that regularly hosts concerts, NFL, boxing and other events. Plus tourist attractions in the Dare Skywalk and Go-karting. We also have the Emptiest Trophy Room in the World which visitors like seeing due to the rare species of spiders that live there in undisturbed peace. As I've said, you're ahead of us in Broadcast and Matchday revenue due to your regular CL football in recent years. In fact, your leap from 10th to 7th in a year only further underlines the importance of that competition. Liverpool being ahead of both of us on commercial highlights that as much as we may not like to hear it, globally they are an exponentially bigger brand name than either of us. City's matchday is embarrassing and I have zero doubt that their commercial numbers are completely fiddled.
I get that your stadium has been a game changer in terms of commercials, but Arsenal's commercial revenue is still lagging behind 'The Big Six' and it was significantly worse pre-2023. We shouldn't be this far behind even factoring all these things you've mentioned. I think it's pretty poor from us in all honesty and definitely a huge improvement area.
Given the fact that your stadium is monofunctional, it seems the only way you can do this is by increasing your global profile and brand name. And the only ways to do that is to either sign or develop a player who develops into a global superstar and to win major trophies. I'd be more than happy to bet that more kids in the world own a Salah shirt than the entirety of Arsenal's starting XI combined.
Your highest/longest sustained period of recent success was not enough to secure the levels of global support that the Poool have maintained since their days of empire. Similarly for what Man Utd have nurtured over their days. It appears that on-pitch success has to be a long-term occurrence in order to bring in the serious commercial revenues.
.They are looking at a capital return of at least 3bn from an investment of 200m so naturally some fans are miffed that they have not put 1 dollar into the club. Personally think clubs should be self sufficient but them paying for the new stands would have been reasonable imo
More that we've trimmed some of the fattest contracts, for example Dier was on £100k a week, Ndombele £120k and Perisic something like £150k Frankly, the £100k a week is better served paying Gray and Bergvall's current weekly salaries with room to grow than it was paying Dier that when he was clearly overpaid
It's surely come down due to moving on at least four players on six-figure salaries last summer, and Solanke is the only player likely to be in that wage band brought in Unless there's any new contracts I've forgotten in the interim
I would be very happy if we could do that. But I think finding the top player who is prepared to join us is pretty tricky. Who do you think we could have got in the last three seasons?
They are the most recent empire. And using the Poool as a reference, if the 20+ yrs since 2013 played out similarly then so might the commercial revenues.
In relation to all of this PSR/FFP/etc. talk, Man Utd are going to jack their prices up again and blame it: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cx2mknlvyw3o These rules aren't working at all, in my opinion.
