Would you trust a bankrupt corner store with £600 million of taxpayers’ money

By Tony Attwood When it comes to England games something strange happens to the reporting.  and not just with the delicate way the media handles the FA, suggesting that they might be reasonable decent set of  people trying hard to do their job (as opposed to them being a bunch of charlatans happy to take …

The return of FFP with a vengeance. Two PL clubs now face serious financial battles if relegated

  By Tony Attwood If you have been reading Untold for a long old time you’ll know that the issues of football finances is one that we like to dig into off and on – and not just regarding Arsenal.  And there’s a good reason for that, because when we started, nearly 10 years ago, …

Are we now in a two tier price structure when it comes to buying players?

  By Tony Attwood Our correspondent in Switzerland has just come up with the calculation that the English players in the top level of the academy at Arsenal outnumber the non-English by two to one.   The suggestion is that there is some serious forward thinking going on, judging by the way the transfer market …

The Premier League finances are utterly unsustainable. But will Arsenal survive?

By Tony Attwood There is a problem with the way football is reported in England and it is this.  There is always an assumption that how things are now will be how things are next year.  Only bigger. It is curious because serious journalists working in other areas of reporting rarely fall into such a …

Sky-way robbery? Time to fight back, football fans

by Ché ‘Blacksheep’ Guevara The moving of the Arsenal v. Leicester City game from Saturday 13 February to lunchtime on the Sunday won’t inconvenience me from a travel perspective but it will give me an awkward decision to make (given its Valentine’s day). I think I know what I will do but at least I …

How the Deloittes Rich List tells us something vital that everyone seems to miss.

By Tony Attwood A couple of years back I had the temerity to question the financial blogger’s Swiss Ramble’s insight into one aspect of football finance.  The level of abuse I received in return was astonishing – it was a sort of journalistic equivalent of “not fit to wear the shirt”. So each time I …

Tottenham fans object to the way tickets are sold

If you are a season ticket holder at Arsenal, and you can’t get to a game, you can try and sell your ticket on Arsenal’s Ticket Exchange which is owned an operated by Arsenal. It is not perfect, and as I found when trying to sell my ticket for Arsenal v Tottenham in the FA …

Arsenal’s financials: it’s all about the wage bill

By Phil Gregory Arsenal’s latest numbers are out and, while I won’t write up an extensive analysis of them here (I’m sure the excellent Swiss Ramble will do that much better than I would),  I will pick out a couple of things that I think are the key things to note going forwards. Starting off, the …

Football finance: a look at the AST’s financial analysis of Arsenal (part one of many)

By Phil Gregory Recently the Arsenal Supporters Trust issued a three page document in which they took a look at Arsenal’s books and posed a few questions based on their analysis. I’d advise readers to have a look at that document before continuing, seeing as my article is looking at parts of their work, though …

What you read about administration, liquidation, corruption and Rangers might not be the whole story.

——————————————– Woolwich Arsenal, the club that changed football.  Have your name in the book as an official sponsor.  Updated information here Follow us on Twitter @UntoldArsenal Follow Arsenal’s History here ——————————————- by Tony Attwood Years back, when I started to work as a journalist, one thing struck me very hard.  There was an agenda.  No …

When a club is bought, spends big, and then collapses… How money laundering in football works.

Click here to become part of the definitive history of Woolwich Arsenal FC Follow us on Twitter @Untold Arsenal ————————————————————– By Anne. Part one of this article is available here. ______________________________ Money laundering through the transfer market is slightly more complicated than the activities described in the first article. According to the FATF, one of …

Money Laundering in Football – are the crooks really running the show? Part 2 of our investigation

Money laundering, football and the press – part 2 (with added Lassana Diara) By Anne In our first article in this series exposing corruption in football we took a quick look at the situation at Tottenham and the minor matter of how a set of phone records got into the wrong hands – before contemplating the …

Money Laundering, Premier League football, Operation Apprentice, and a little more on Portsmouth FC (again)

  By: Anne   You know, it’s amazing how quiet the football media can be when they want to… Leading into our upcoming series on the transfer market, transfer rumours, and (here’s the big one) possible money laundering in the EPL, I thought I would give our readers a few things to think about in …

Untold Economics: Could Man U in trouble despite the huge income?

By Tony Attwood . In football there is a bit of a rule that says that you can lose money and win things, and that’s fine.  But to lose money and not win things – that is called “doing an Everton”. . Of course the world has got more complex now that Manchester City and …

Manchester City create the most expensive shot in the history of football

By Tony Attwood Manchester City added another honour to their trophy cabinet last night by securing the most expensive shot in the history of football.  Their squad last night cost (including this season’s salaries) something in the region of £200m, and managed one shot on target – an all time record. Some of the squad …

Arteta is a gem, but spare a thought for poor sad Everton

—————————————– “Making the Arsenal” – the book of Arsenal’s rebirth Twitter us on follow (or the other way round) @UntoldArsenal By Tony Attwood If there is a man in football who seems to love his club and be doing all he can for it, it must be Bill Kenwright, who appears to have been pouring …

What the Mirror and Sun might have said about Harry if he’d worked for Arsenal

We’re on Twitter @UntoldArsenal By Tony Attwood . The Sun newspaper is in a bit of a pickle at the moment.  You see, Harry Redknapp is their columnist and (presumably) paid lots of money to write stuff, which means that when the big news in football is that Harry Redknapp is going to appear in …

UNTOLD at the AGM. What the reports don’t say: Silent Stan’s great joke.

The Christmas gift for the fan with (almost) everything By Tony Attwood The AGM of Arsenal Holdings plc lasts an hour – several hundred people and a bunch of journalists turn up, there’s tea and biscuits before and after, and this year it was held in the Woolwich section of Club Level, which was nice …

Err, is it possible? Could the Swiss Ramble have got it wrong?

By Tony Attwood In case you don’t know the blog, The Swiss Ramble is a King among blogs.  Blogger of the year, praised by the media, written by a British guy who has lived overseas for many years, everyone loves it and admires the erudition and research to be found therein. So, first rule of …

Arsenal have opened Pandora’s Box

Arsenal have opened Pandora’s Box Don McMahon Following the departure of Cesc Fabregas for a derisory sum of around 30M Euro after add-ons, with Barca’s mocking confirmation that they robbed us, and with the sale of Samir Nasri to City for 25M sterling, there were innumerable cries of outrage and dismay from the British media,punditry …

Untold Economics: Why does an Arsenal blog keep talking about Rangers of Glasgow?

Untold Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal By Tony Attwood The fact that Liverpool managed to scramble out of the mire, and Barca, having famously run out of cash so they couldn’t pay the players, are still there buying the likes of Cesc etc makes some people think that there is no crisis.  But crisis there is, …

Untold Finance: If we didn’t have world-wide scouting we would be like poor sad Everton – on the edge of the end

By Tony Attwood Phil’s comment in his Man U match preview that his boss was offering a bet that Everton would end up higher than Arsenal this season made me smile. Of course my smile vanished in the light of the result in Manchester, but that did not change the fact that Bill Kenwright has …

Is the problem at Arsenal at Board level?

Untold Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal by Tony Attwood We all know there are lots of anti-Wengerians on the internet, telling us daily what a useless manager he is. There are also a number of people (some of whom are kind enough to read this blog) who argue that this is not the case. But just …

Are Arsenal a selling club ? The true crack(s) of the great Arsenal way !

Are Arsenal a selling club ? The true crack(s) of the great Arsenal way ! Ibrahima Fode NDIAYE For the last couple weeks or months or even years, Arsenal FC its board and manager are under immense critics from all corners. The general consensus is that Arsenal are an unambitious selling club only interested in making financial …

Harsh Truths about Arsenal’s “Decline”

Nick Tolhurst Harsh Truths about Arsenal’s “Decline” Forget debates about whether Arsène Wenger is too miserly, stubborn or just plain wrong in the transfer market – the truth is far simpler. So another summer ends and, despite the best efforts of Tony and Untold Arsenal; the media, the pundits and of course the assorted “collectible …