- What is to be done about Arsenal’s losses?
- How the rest of Europe will defeat Man City and finally push them aside.
By Tony Attwood
Few businesses can go on losing money year after year, quite simply because in the end you run out of money and the banks lose faith in your ability to turn the business around. At which point the lenders want their money back, the business goes bust, and someone else comes along and buys what’s left for £1.00
So most responsible directors of loss-making companies take action to turn the business around before the crisis gets that far. And there are several ways to do this, such as by selling more products or services, paying staff less, reducing the number of staff, offering a few new things for sale that you were not selling before, stopping plans for expansion…
Now you’ll realise I am sure I have picked up on this theme at this moment, because Arsenal have been losing money, and they are planning to make some staff redundant in order to overcome this problem.
Now the club has, as we would expect, been heavily criticised in the media for looking to make redundancies, and there have been subsequent reports about declining staff morale and other negative effects from this new policy. But I have noticed very few suggestions in the media that are currently wallowing in this negative tale, as to how else Arsenal moves back into profits… They all say we should not be making a loss, but none say what we should have done instead (while of course still winning the League).
Now, up to 2018/19 Arsenal had 16 consecutive years of profit, but little in the way of success in winning the league after 2004, the unbeaten season. This was primarily due to the costs of building the new stadium – which I think most people agree was a good idea – especially the 22,000 extra supporters who were able to get to see Arsenal live because of the increased stadium size.
Now up to 2018/19, Arsenal made a profit for 16 consecutive years, but whipped up by the media, some fans complained that we didn’t win the league after the unbeaten season. But from 2018/19, Arsenal started making a loss each year in part due to costs from the new stadium.
Now, that was not bad, considering that back in 2021 Arsenal came 8th in the league, and thereafter year by year pushed themselves higher and higher up the league
These initial losses can be put down to COVID, and it took the club a while to recover; starting from 2022/23 the losses began to decline, and in 2024/25 the loss was £1.4m. But there was still a loss each year, and quite simply that can’t go on forever. So having squeezed out all the costs that could be squeezed out, and having increased all the prices the club could get away with, the only thing left, to get rid of the 2024/25 loss of £1.4m was to have some redundancies.
But we must remember that redundancies are not sackings… people lose their jobs because the jobs no longer exist, mostly because computerisation and other technological developments have taken over tasks previously done by people.
The redundancies have been heavily criticised, with suggestions such as the owners making good the money needed – which seems to ignore the fact that this is what they have been doing for years, in making good on the losses.
But making redundancies is the decision of the owner, and UK law lays down a fairly decent tax-free set of payments for people who are made redundant – they don’t just lose their job without compensation. And of course the people made redundant are free to get another job – and indeed in my experience most do very shortly after being made redundant. So although it is not guaranteed, some people made redundant can find themselves living on a double income of redundancy pay and the pay from their new job – although obviously that is not guaranteed.
But now the matter is settled, and Arsenal should be back into profit in the present tax year of 2026/7, and on that basis we can hope to see a team that is building on the title-winning achievement of last season. Hee are the figures
- 2024/25: £(1.4) million loss (Revenue: £691.0 million)
- 2023/24: £(17.7) million loss (Revenue: £616.6 million)
- 2022/23: £(52.1) million loss (Revenue: £467.0 million)
- 2021/22: £(45.5) million loss (Revenue: £369.0 million)
- 2020/21: £(107.3) million loss (COVID-impacted season)
- 2019/20: £(35.0) million loss (COVID-impacted season)
- 2018/19: £(27.1) million loss (transitional pre-COVID period)
(Note: prior to 2018/19, Arsenal had 16 consecutive profitable seasons.
