Taken from BBC News:

“Arsenal have become the first English football club to break the £200m income barrier.

Their results for last season, the first in their new Emirates Stadium, sees income rise to £200.8m, a jump of £63m compared to the last year at Highbury.

The improvement brings Arsenal into the big league of European earners.

Manchester United will have to show an increase of £32m for last season to match the Gunners, while Chelsea will have to improve their income by nearly £50m, Liverpool by nearly £80m and Tottenham by £127m.”

This is indeed very good news for the club and gooners all over the world. It is another reason why Arsenal does not need a sugar daddy to bail us out in order to compete in England and in Europe.

The club has always been (and will always be) self-sufficient. The way Arsenal is operated stems from being a prudent business first, then passionate football club second. We are not like Leeds who will spend money at all costs in hopes of reaching success, and we are patient enough to develop our players into stars, rather than buying establish ones in hopes of instant glory.

Some would argue that once Wenger leaves, the next manager may need to spend more money on the transfer market to buy instead of breed star players. Not a problem, the revenue at the Emirates is sufficient to provide the next manager a healthy sum for the transfer kitty if needed, it’s just that currently the fact that wenger isn’t spending much is an added bonus and should not be expected as the norm.

Our players salary is only 50% of the revenue. I think most NHL, NFL, MLB teams pay close to 75% on player salaries, and I think Chelsea probably pays 200% (lol!)

With regards to our £345m debt, there is an annual budget to repay portion of the principal on top of the annual interest, and would be repaid within 10 years. The only worry I would have is that if Arsenal gets taken over, the new owner might do a “Glazer” and just make minimum interest payments on the loans while pocketing all profits and leave the club (and supporters) to save themselves.

What are your thoughts?

I wrote this and posted it on the BBC 606 in July and got very little response. I think this site has a better class of reader and I hope you guys enjoy my scribble.
I have added a few lines to bring it up to date.

“Another great player leaves Arsenal and all around us are writing yet another obituary. The players that leave have a few comments to make but it’s only the media choice that is given visibility.

Wenger will be at Arsenal for many more years. He has created and built his dream with the training ground, the squad of young talent, the Emirates stadium. He has had one undefeated season his second is imminent. How so many seemingly intelligent pundits cannot see the quality of this composer of symphonies on a football pitch amazes me.

I am 57 and I have watched football in East Africa (and around the world) where I was born and know first hand the natural rhythm of the African footballer…his gift of physique, stamina and humility. Wenger sees in football what others occasionally hear in sound. He sees phrases of movement, cohesion of instruments, transitions of melody and character of his musicians. There are some things he misses but that is his humanity.

Wenger buys in saplings and sells trees that have shed their best fruit. Everyone that sees his forest thinks that their perspective is a better judge of its maturity. Wenger knows. His judgment of hardened or dead wood is that of a seasoned carpenter. He creates an ever-changing copse of colour and vision so that the Arsenal fans can enjoy a variety of fruit, always wondering what flavour Wenger’s next cherry.

The Arsenal is special to me and special to the Gooners who love the club and anything that tries to desecrate this football shrine of ours hurts us. We have our opinions and our favourites. We have our history and our records. We have our neighbours and we forgive them their trespasses. We have our pride and we have our future. We are the Arsenal and we are the best.

We play to win whilst we entertain.”

The Arsenal are now top of the League and are strutting their stuff. There are still a lot of media people critical of Wenger and Arsenal. This is used well by Wenger – he needs manure to nurture his orchard and nothing better than negative comment to feed his young saplings.