While i think there are many issues that need to be resolved with the club both in the boardroom and on the pitch I am sick and tired of hearing the phrase taking profits from the club whenever Kronke or the board are discussed. Since we have been a PLC no profits have ever been taken out of the club as the only way to do so is to issue a dividend something the club has never done. You could at best make the argument that the values of shares has risen over time so if a shareholder sells he can make a profit (which would be unrelated to the club anyway), his ealth on paper has risen if they hold on to their shares (which would be unrelated to the club anyway) or they can leverage against the shares and even then a worse case scenario those shares could be seized by the bank and would be sold at auction where they would be sold at auction to some other rich guy (which could happen at anytime anyway and also would be unrelated to the club anyway)
I think the frustration of not spending the money we've made is incorrectly equated with Kronke wanting to use Arsenal as a cash cow. I think the board have been very canny with their money. They've turned a huge debt into a big profit making business - you can't argue that it's good business and if we'd ended up saddled with massive unmanagable debt, then you can be sure the vitriol towards Kronke and Gazidis would be ten fold. I'm hoping that, as Gazidis has promised, now we're properly solvent, we are going to see us spend some serious money on the squad and 'compete with the best teams in Europe' - that's how I'll judge him and Kronke, not on some mid term frustration and untruths.
Yeah i agree we are a very well run business lagging behind only Man Utd and Bayern in terms of the way we are run - not necessarily in revenue. That being said we have suffered far more than anyone expected by this move and honestly with some of our transfer policy both in and out far more than we should ever have needed to. Arsene and the board are now getting caught on the wrong side of a very thin line of using the move as an excuse of deflated expectations in fact as a team we have gone too far the other way. I still think Wenger can do the job but a change in both tactics (immediately) and personnel (jan and the summer is required) I am talking about buying 3-4 quality players (players like Ba, Huntelaar, Holtby, (first 3 can be got on the cheap) Fellani, matudi, sissoko, mvilla, ) not really expecting big name acquisitions because while we may be able to afford large transfer fees we will be blown out of the water when it comes to wages.
One way of taking profits out of the club is to pay yourself a massive wage for doing very little? What do your Directors pay themselves?
http://angryofislington.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/directors-remuneration.jpg Handy stat shows it all Kronke pays himself 25k annum, Friar who has pensions and bonuses having worked with the club long term is over a Million, Eldman was same as is Gazidis now. Other board members only are negligible. So basically guys who own largest holding dont really pay themselves much. It is mostly the salaried employees who get big wages.
Vultures like Chamakh, Arshavin, Squillaci, Denilson, Bendtner. Get rid of the lot of them. For players like Squillaci and Chamakh to be paid £2m odd pounds each per year after tax and deductions by Arsenal FC is criminal. How many games has Chamakh played... isn't it something like his 3rd appearance since February? So Arsenal FC pay him £2m to play 270 odd minutes of competitive football. £75000 a minute for Chamakh's time on pitch for our first team. Value for money.
I think you are being a little unreasonable and possibly a little ignorant in how the world of football works. I am NOT saying I think that these players deserve their salaries, but what is the alternative? Buy no players at all? Most of our fans are clamouring for Wenger to buy players. Ah you say, only buy players that are successful. But Arsenal as a football club cannot afford players that are a guaranteed success. Messi, Ronaldo, Hazard, Mata, Tevez etc are not in our price range. So we have to take a gamble on players, or not buy at all. Fans got ugly when Wenger said, we are going to rely on youth, because he couldn't buy better on the market, at prices Arsenal can afford. So he gave in to the fans, and what did we find, the players we bought are no better, and a lot more expensive than the kids. Wenger was right! Now, you are all complaining about the players the fans urged the club to buy! Are you advocating returning to the youth policy?
From what i have read about the accounts decreasing the debts and large cash reserves. If I remember correctly our reserves were over/close to a 100mn not sure why we had that much or why we are holding on to it. Also important to note that we haven't been making massive profits we average 26mn a year since 2004 and the really big years were directly influenced by the Highbury flats. Also from the image below you can see the wage bill has been rising steadily at about 7mn a year in the same period. So profits from last year already have 1/4th swallowed by wages for next season then taxes, then i am guessing rest is put into cash reserves/decreasing debt. The huge cash reserves which does steadily increase (http://swissramble.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/arsenals-transfer-budget.html estimates it over a 100mn in 2010) year on year is the most interesting - are they waiting till it is big enough to pay of the debt and charges in one go? Are they waiting for FPP to come into place and then make a splurge as other clubs will be hamstrung? Are we being prudent untill Arsenal is in big trouble (this season potentially)? What is the motivation? http://abehnisch.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/arsenal-profit-wages-turnover-table-1996-2011.png
No Oxo profits are calculated after all expenses have been taken into account, we are not talking about margin.
