Quote Originally Posted by Alan B'stard View Post
on reflection the story about having to invest in the long run has been a lie. The stadium move has generated a lot of value its true. However that value has been divvied up by
1) players/management on ever increasing wages and
2) shareholders who, while never taking dividends out, were happy to keep the money in the club so their shares got boosted and they could sell out to kronke for a massive backdated payday.

very little of that value generated found has been invested in sporting performance.
I think that that asessment is a tad harsh. Firstly, it ignores the need to repay the stadium debt - something that the club is doing ahead of time. In April this year, the debt had been reduced to £147m from £350m.

Second - and this is the crux of the matter for AFC - the stadium project was intended to allow Arsenal to compete at the very top against the background of the EPL as it existed in the early 2000's. However, the unrestricted 'investment' that has since occurred at the likes of Chelsea and Citeh means that the market has made it impossible to compete at the top via traditional means. You either become a billionaire's plaything, or you live on the verge of bancruptcy - and the latter is something that only the very biggest clubs can do 'safely' because lenders have to have the security of the underlying asset base - in tems of fanbase as well as tangible assets.

It is undeniably the financially doped clubs that have had an adverse effect on us - by making it far more expensive for us to buy and keep players than if they had not inflated the market. So the club can't be wholly blamed for having to divert more of the stadium income into player's wages.

What we are talking about, essentially, is degrees of borrowing. And while I think we would all agree that our manager has been overly puritanical in his approach to the transer market, and over-indulgent as regards rewarding his 'project' players, I don't think you could go so far as to say that the aim of long term investment was a lie. It is an aim that has been taken over by events, and one that will only now bear fruit in the unlikely event of the FIFA fair play rules having any real effect - but only the most blinkered fans woiuld deny that long term stability remains a key aim of the club management.