Why Arsenal can’t sign any free contract players from overseas despite rumours

by Tony Attwood

According to Teamtalk there is a strong chance of Arsenal signing another player this transfer window.

Now yes, I know the window has “slammed shut” but the rule is that players who are without a club can still transfer into PL teams until the end of the month (or at least that is how I see it).

As a result Teamtalk have been getting very excited about our signing Sami Khedria.  Their argument is that “Juventus are set to terminate Sami Khedira’s contract as they look to push the Germany midfielder out of the club – and reports in Italy claim Arsenal are set to take advantage.

“The experienced midfielder has two years remaining on his contract at the Allianz Stadium and has been told by Juve that he can move on this summer.”

The suggestion seems to be that the club and player could cancel the player’s contract by mutual agreement leaving the player free to sign for Arsenal.  Or apparently Wolverhampton.  Indeed within the article there is even the suggestion that Juventus might actually pay the player to leave.

Further, according to the same website

“Khedira was strongly linked with the Gunners this summer, but Unai Emery shelved his interest to a) pursue other targets and b) in the belief he could bring in the player as a free agent after the window shut.

“Arsenal would likely offer the player a two-year deal, but on significantly reduced wages from what he was earning in Italy.”

Except, as reported yesterday, from our calculations, Arsenal already have the maximum permitted number of non-Home Grown players.  Now of course we may have got our calculations wrong, but it is also possible that excitable websites might have forgotten the 25 rule with its maximum number of “foreigners”.  If that is so it would not be the first time, as it seems to have every single transfer window.  Buying can only happen if we sell first – there is not time to buy and sell later.

Meanwhile a few fans are turning on Mkhitaryan – just as the transfer window closes.  Is that helpful?  My answer would be no, but it appears to give some people personal gratification at being able to spout negative stuff.  For them abusing a player is much more important than supporting the team.

They must know if does no good – not least because there is quite a while to go before the next transfer window, and we are rather short of players due to injuries and events.  For example consider these headlines….

“Emery: ‘I don’t know when Ozil and Kolasinac will be back’.”   That from the Evening Standard

“Arsenal star’s wife leaves England due to safety fears” which came from the Daily Cannon.

Not the sort of headline that makes everything seem hunky-dory in the Arsenal camp. 

And just in case that is not enough negativity for one day, there is a wonderful story doing the rounds in which the conclusion is reached (in some editions) that Arsenal actually did only spend £45m this summer.  In fact as you may have seen in our comments columns, it is possible to construct it to read that Arsenal only spent £25m.

The way it is done is to assume that Arsenal only pay a part of a transfer fee now, and the rest over a number of years.  Then add on to that the notion that when Arsenal are buying a player in a year’s time they only start paying for him in a year’s time – and nothing now.  Plus, then assume that there is no fee for a player on loan for a year.

That reduces the amount Arsenal have spent this summer.

Then the next assumption is made, that with each of the players we have sold, Arsenal get paid for all in one go.   In other words Arsenal is able to negotiate long term payments for players, while any club buying an Arsenal player pays it all up in one bash.  This is the reversal of the normal argument which says that Arsenal are so dumb that while everyone buys players over time, Arsenal pay up front straight away.

So that increases the amount of money that Arsenal receives.

Next, there is the assumption that Arsenal have no further expenditure for players that have been bought in the past, using the same system as is proposed here – paying slowly over time.   In other words we are doing part payment deals now, but never did before, so we are not spending any other money – only the first parts of the new sets of payments.

Add in also no payment for loan players and no payment for anyone who has been bought this year but will be joining the club next year, and with a bit of jiggerypokery you can indeed get our transfer budget right down.

The only perfidious newspaper I have seen trying to run this story is the Daily Express, and even they gave up after a day.

The fact is if you read the serious reports on what business clubs have done this summer, these quote, as they have always done across the years, the full amount spent and the full amount received, so nothing is carried over.  Then, in keeping with other limited companies in the UK, the clubs, in their annual accounts to Revenue and Customs, who gather tax for the UK government, they write their assets off over a period of years.

Usually for a player, the transfer fee is written off over four years, irrespective of what contractual agreement the clubs have come to between themselves.  But generally speaking the four year arrangement is both how the payment is made and how it is accounted for.

It was, I suspect, a complete misunderstanding of how these things work, that led to the first wild Arsenal Supporters’ Trust allegation against the club for secretly hiding a vast amount of cash that could be spent on players but was being hidden away so that it could be paid to Mr Kroenke.    It was a semi-skimmed reading of the accounts, and after Ivan Gazidis went public in denouncing it, that matter was left.

Although I often accuse the newspapers of various perfidious commentaries when it comes to Arsenal, I don’t think they generally misunderstand what is going on in accounts (leaving aside the Express of course) – they just repeated the AST accusations.