Arsenal’s financial problems were clear a year back, and now are worse.

by Tony Attwood

In 2018/19 Arsenal had the fifth highest match day revenue of any football club in the world, behind Barcelona, Real Madrid, Man U and PSG.  That Arsenal have maintained this position, despite falling out of the Champions League and having a supporters’ revolt going on around them, along with massive antagonism in the media, is truly remarkable.

But … of course that reliance on match days became a huge problem when the stadium shut down.  It meant our prime source of revenue vanished – even when matches started up again.  And just how big a problem that is we can see from the fact that with 25% of our revenue coming from match day income we are the most match day dependent club in the world.  In short, we need to maximise revenue from every other source to cope with the lack of match day income.

In domestic TV revenue during 2018/19 we came in 8th, behind Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Barcelona, and Manchester United, Tottenham, and Real Madrid.

This reflects the declining interest in Arsenal during the season.  There was no Arsene Wenger who was always considered a draw, (not least on overseas TV where most of the time he could converse in the language of the interviewer).  After Wenger, Arsenal was managed by a man who was not so erudite, and had a team playing less exciting football.

Then once the TV audience stopped finding the placards, marches and plane banners interesting, there was not much else to attract them in.    AFTV was of interest to the media for a while, but that quickly became boring as well.

But it is when we come to look at European TV income that the figures (pulled together by Swiss Ramble) start to look really poor.  In terms of European TV, Arsenal came in 18th in the money league. First were Barcelona, second Liverpool – for although it wasn’t Liverpool’s title winning season the club did get to the Champions League final – and as such earned three times as much European TV money as Arsenal.  As indeed did Tottenham who came in third in the overseas TV income.   Arsenal in 18th were behind the likes of Roma and Napoli.

This meant that on figures taken from the Deloitte Money League, Arsenal were 9th in overall TV money – something that will have declined even further last season because of the early exit from the Europa.  Although the run in the FA Cup to the final will have helped a little more.

Overall, in terms of commercial revenue the club has now slipped down to 13th, two places behind Tottenham – their revenue aided by that Champs League run.

Of course other clubs have problems too.   Everton for example got 71% of their income from TV among the clubs surveyed by Swiss Ramble.  (For Arsenal it was only 47%).   That Everton figure means that nearly three quarters of their income is largely outside their control – it is at the whim of broadcasters.  If they think Everton is not a team worth showing, then their biggest source of income is going to decline.

The area that is most readily under the club’s control, irrespective of everything else is commercial income – everything from sponsorships to replica kits.  Here Arsenal are again behind Tottenham, and way behind the rest of the traditional top six – although some of Tottenham’s money would have come from up-front payments from companies buying space within their new stadium.

But mostly these figures do represent a fairly sorry state of affairs for Arsenal, as the next set of figures (for 2019/20) are certain to be worse.  They reflect two years of following a path of swapping managers, having a temporary manager, spending a fortune in the transfer market and slipping down the league.

True, the club seems to have got the right manager in the end but that is in the end, not in a carefully planned process.  Allowing protesting supporters to display their negativity to the ever-eager media day by day harmed the club enormously, and led to a point where some of the media were more interested in the antics of AFTV as they were in Arsenal FC.

We also have the point now where the club is seen to be needing to replace several members of the squad, but don’t have the sort of money that other clubs are currently able to spend.  Previously that didn’t matter too much because players would come to Arsenal to play for Mr Wenger, and he had the knack of finding gems for nothing.  But now we are in a new position.

A bad position which is not helped by the dispute that has broken out between China and the Premier League which has led to the Chinese authorities withholding £160m owed to the PL clubs for TV rights.

Of course that is not Arsenal’s fault – and we’ll come back to that dispute in a later article – but it is the sort of financial problem that the club could do without at this time.

8 Replies to “Arsenal’s financial problems were clear a year back, and now are worse.”

  1. Lets be honest the commercial revenue of the club has never been at the levels of other clubs even under Wenger. A blind man could see Wenger needed to go when he did maybe even before that. You need to move on and join up with the fanbase and get behind the club and stop harping back to the good old days.

  2. Most people call it reviewing the history, and debating points of view, and welcome the chance to explore one view against another.

    A minority of people like to close down discussion, suggest that certain points should not be made, that debate should only focus on key points. It’s what the neo-fascists like to do. Doesn’t make you one, Matt, but your comments telling people what they should and should not debate take you to that zone. My approach, opens the way for democratic dialogue.

    Just a different style and approach.

  3. Matt, I do not accept that being an admirer of Mr. Wenger disqualifies me from membership of the “fan-base” any more than being a critic of Mr. Wenger disqualifies you.

    Tony’s full knowledge and appreciation of the Club’s history has been well documented. Clearly, he has a better perspective than many others of some of the “bad” as well as “the good old days”. You may not share his opinions, but it is ridiculous and insulting to suggest that he needs to “get behind the club”.

  4. Frankly, that the chinese market has problems does not surprise me. Whether it is political or economic setbacks.
    The loss of revenue is going to hit each team.
    And at some point, with revenues dropping we may come back to a football economy that is more balanced except for oil state clubs.
    But definitely it looks like the premier League is on a downward slope and that money is not growing on trees (or grass) anymore.

    Are Arsenal who own most of their stadium better off then some other clubs ? Most probably.
    I believe this coming season is going to be most interesting.

  5. So let us say that we follow Matt’s idea and join the fanbase (as he calls it ) . Then what ? We the fans come to the rescue of the club and give them money ? Our support the got for free !

    Ok , works for me as I love this club . And I need my fix ! And I probably may be able to contribute .

    So what are the rest of you lot going to do ?
    Write to your local elected officials/government for some aid ?
    Write to somebody or some parties that have your needs in their minds ?
    Sign those online petitions to ask someone else to save the club on our behalf ?
    Print moronic posters and fly silly messages of protests?
    Take to YOUTUBE , and the social media ?
    Organise extreme and violent protests ?
    Or maybe just bombard blogs and sites that are not playing by your playbook ?
    Or you can just write memes and deride those who don/t agree with you.

    I await the response from the fanbase .

  6. A man wanted to get married. He was having trouble choosing among three likely candidates. He gives each woman a present of $5,000 and watches to see what they do with the money.

    The first does a total makeover. She goes to a fancy beauty salon, gets her hair done, new makeup; buys several new outfits and dresses up very nicely for the man. She tells him that she has done this to be more attractive for him because she loves him so much.

    The man was impressed.

    The second goes shopping to buy the man gifts. She gets him a new set of golf clubs, some new gizmos for his computer, and some expensive clothes. As she presents these gifts, she tells him that she has spent all the money on him because she loves him so much..

    Again, the man is impressed.

    The third invests the money in the stock market She earns several times the $5,000. She gives him back his $5,000 and reinvests the remainder in a joint account. She tells him that she wants to save for their future because she loves him so much.

    Obviously, the man was impressed.

    The man thought for a long time about what each woman had done with the money he’d given her.

    Then he married the one with the biggest tits.

    Men are like that, you know.

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