What every football club (and most certainly Arsenal) is aiming for.

 

 

• The apparent decline of Tottenham and the question of care for players elsewhere
• Positive injury news for Arsenal ahead Monday’s game with Sheffield United

Of course in one sense the thing that every football club is aiming for, is success.  Except there’s more to it than that for as we have often seen over the years success can be bought through the right purchases of players.   But if that is the technique used, then if the money runs out, so does the success on the pitch, and disaster can follow.

Thus success on the football pitch has to come along with financial success: in the end the books have to be balanced (at least until FFP is reformed once again).  And the process has to be sustainable.

Now one of the key problems that Premier League clubs have is that they are by and large sold out for all home matches.  So although they can increase their prices to some degree, there’s not too much they can do in terms of increasing match receipts.

The TV money has increased over the years as the satellite stations have fought each other for a greater share of the audience, but that now seems to have reached saturation, as does the outreach in terms of selling the Premier League to other countries.

Plus there is the suggestion that the Premier League used to be advertised as the league that had different clubs at the top each year.  Six Manchester City wins in seven years is starting to make the PL look a bit like the French League (nine titles for PSG in 11 years) or the German league (11 titles in a row for Bayern Munich).    Some viewers are ok with that but others feel it is all a bit lopsided.

Now of course it is true that in the early days of the Premier League Mancheter United won seven titles in nine seasons, but then just as there were mutterings they did slip back, not having won the title for ten years, although then of course another dominant power came along.

Which is why some clubs are looking at ways of bringing in extra cash – either to be able to challenge the dominant force or to be able to buy in enough new players at least to make it look like they are trying.

And given there is a limit as to how high ticket prices can be taken to (Arsenal are currently experimenting in this regard to see what they can get away with season by season) there is also a desire to bring in new sponsors and put up sponsorship fees while increasing merchandising, increasing the use of the stadium facilities beyond match days, selling players at a profit, and when the next round of TV contracts comes along, increasing those prices too.

But of course the playing field is not level.   Manchester City for example has 38 global and regional partners, all of whom are feeding something into the club.

Arsenal don’t get anything like the same amount of money in that way and recently confirmed they are “reliant on the continued financial support of its ultimate parent company, Kroenke Sports & Entertainment”. 

So Arsenal are working on putting up their commercial income which has now reached £169.3million a year.  Handling this the number of employees in the club handling commercial and administrative matters has risen by 17% in the last year.   A new Emirates deal is due to start next season and that should increase the amount received in that regard – although Tottenham’s abject failure to get a sponsor – any sponsor – for their ground, shows the market is not as easy as one might expect.

Arsenal are in fact, sixth in terms of revenue from all sources last season, largely because Arsenal were not in the Champions League.   Tottenham are suffering enormously financially this season through not being in Europe at all, and had hoped that in compensation they’d be at or near the top of the league through not having mid-week Euro games.   It hasn’t worked: no Europe and no ground sponsor this season plus an owner recently convicted on criminal charges in the USA, does not auger well for the next financial year’s figures.

So although Arsenal were, last time around, sixth in the income table for the current financial year they will move up to at least fourth (ahead of Chelsea and Tottenham – and possibly Liverpool.

We noted recently the need Arsenal have had to move some players on at a loss but as a result, the wages bill has come down, although it is of course now rising once more as Saliba is no longer on loan and he and Odegaard have new contracts.  Plus of courrse Rice, Saka, Martinelli, Havertz etc are all on major salaries.

But Arsenal have not fallen into the death trap of spending more on salaries than their entire income.  They spend only half their income on wages – and pay out far less than even Manchester United and Chelsea, who are now lagging behind in the league.

Better still, the money for the Emirates Stadium is owed to Kroenke’s company, which is likely to be quite sympathetic to any request for a rescheduling of that debt.  Plus another plot of land that Arsenal own has now got clearance for development for student accommodation, so that will help.

So by and large the money is looking good.  Not as good as Manchester City of course, at least until they are reigned in by the League with its eternal FFP enquiry, but still, it’s going ok.