the thing that makes me laugh about the “arsene out” brigade is that they can’t see what wenger is doing right now. it’s pretty clear to me.

has anyone ever noticed how arsene always goes on about ‘the long term stability of the club.”, or am i the only one?

let me explain what i think his plan is:

keep the team competitive (i.e top 4) with the occasional flirt with a real championship run (like the season that was ended at st.andrews. maybe even this season too). instead of buying £20 million+ range, buy youngsters who have resale value, in order to…..

…….pay off the debt QUICKER than we have to (25 year loan). i’m not sure how near we are to paying it off right now. however, my guess is we are WAY ahead of schedule, simply because arsene refuses to spend. maybe someone could tell me for sure.

this way, when the debt is finally clear, we will basically be the london equivalent of manchester united, if not bigger. we will be able to outbid pretty much any team in the world other than city. you can see that from all the ‘top 20 teams’ financial reports that are published year on year, we are nearly there already.

now tell me this……

how are spurs going to be able to do the same (stay competitive, rely on youth, aim for top 4, clear debt) when the man in charge who cannot help but spend, spend, spend all the time? in late december, he stated how he didn’t need any players. then he goes and gets gudjohnsen on loan, buys kaboul, then tried a last minute attempt to buy begovic. the latter two players happen to play for the club he’s virtually bankrupted by doing the same impulse spending. he’s like a prostitute with a stolen credit card.

in summary, arsene out brigade, be careful what you wish for.

on top of it I still cannot believe the media havent noticed that every club Harry has managed have gone to shit.. If thats not proof of the sort of guy he is, I dont know what is.

It would be a shame if it happened to the spuds thou..;-)

Wenger (for all his faults) has turned Arsenal from a middle-of-the-road-with-rich-history-and-occasionally-sucessfull club into the No.1 rival to Man U’s domination, won 3 PL titles, Runners up more times than Chelsea managed even after spending billions, 4 FA Cups, EUFA Cup League Cup & Champions League finalists, now a club that has a stadium and crowds that rival MU’s and the world’s biggest and best, trainig and academy facilities that are the envy of world football, and a club that is much, much bigger, both in terms of International Recognition, pride and respect. Arsenal, now a club top talent wants to come to, a club that is always considered a challenger to glory, one of the top 10 clubs in the world, both in terms of footballing and financial status, now a global organisation worth around £1 Billion (or thereabouts) – that my friends is the achievments of one Mr Arsene Wenger. True he didn’t do it alone, but it’s doubtful whether it would have happened so easily without him. So salutes to Mr Wenger, Mr Car-crash manager of tiny club Spuds, you are just not worthy of even being mentioned alongside the great man.

Peter Storrie still colects his million pound salary doesn’t he? so why should Sol give up what he’s owed? who cares whether he’s rich, go and ask Simon Cowell whther he will just give you 1.7 Million because you need it and he is rich so he doesn’t, he’ll tell you to politely F*** Off.

Redknapp has managed:-

Bournemouth-put into administration following his departure
West Ham-saved from bankrupsy by Sullivan And Gold
Southampton-Administration
Portsmouth-approaching Administration
He might not have been directly responsible for later financial difficulties but he certainly seems to have helped these clubs live beyond their means in the first place.He’s now spent a lot of money at Spurs in an attempt to get into the “Top Four” and is soon to be seen in Court answering charges of Defrauding the Tax Authorities-??????

dada – Nice posts on Harry. I think Arry’s just a long line of Spud Schysters that have been involved in the club, barrow boys that belong on a market stall not a dugout. Ol’ Twitchy is still considered a top manager despite being one for 3 decades and having won practically FA (see what I did there). Then there’s the other great – Terry Vegetables, another schyster who’s credentials are shambolic but somehow construed as legendary.

Wenger won more in his first full season at Arsenal and these planks have done in their entire career in the English game.

If I’m a Chelsea fan, first I’d kill myself, but then I’d be shitting my pants right about now. How, exactly, are they going to break even much less turn a profit when they have the second highest payroll, no academy, no prospects coming up, and are bankrolled entirely by a Russian Oligarch? And Liverpool? And Man U?

Hmmm… looks like Arsene Wenger’s fiscally prudent approach to football is going to pay dividends sooner that I thought.

Oh and one more thing, you should fully expect Arsenal’s name to be lumped in with the other financial dopers in all the papers. Despite the fact that Arsenal are one of only a few clubs who are managing their debt, used the debt for improvements rather than leveraged buyouts, and are turning a profit every year.

18 English clubs owe 56% of the debt of the 732 European clubs licensed by UEFA

Manchester U and Liverpool liable to be excluded from Europe under new regulations

There is a secret UEFA report called “The European Club Footballing Landscape,” which reviews the finances of football. The latest available edition is that which trawls through 2007/8.

It looks at the 732 clubs licensed by UEFA to play in its international competitions.

Why it is secret, no one is saying. After all what could be more important in football today than to reveal the extent of the financial crisis which threatens the very existence of the game in its current form? But that’s UEFA for you – keep it under your hat as long as possible – especially when it turns out that your richest league has 56% of all the debt in European football.

Anyway, the secrecy failed because the Guardian has got a copy. They say that the report shows the combined debts of 18 EPL clubs at around €4bn. They exclude Portsmouth and West Porno (or West Iceland as they were then) because they were not licenced, because they were both on other planets at the time.

So the EPL debt is four times the debt of La Liga, the second most indebted league, and La Liga is considered by some to be a basket case in its own right, with Real Mad spending money in a way that is unrelated to any known system of economics, and paying for Da do Ron Ron on the basis of shirt sales.

Simultaneously the EPL made loads more money from TV etc than anyone else. The average club took away €122m in rights and royalty fees compared with €79m in Germany.

Anyway UEFA are now going to publish this report in full, and come out with a new set of Financial Fair Play rules, which it says are agreed in principle by the big clubs and their leagues.

These require clubs to break even financially from 2012-13. There are suggestions that the loophole of putting money into shares so it doesn’t show as debt is being closed in the new regs.

What’s more the report specifically (and yes it is specific on this) identifies Manchester IOU and Liverpool Insolvency as catastrophic in its own right, and there is implied criticism of the way the EPL and the FA have simply closed their eyes and said and done nothing about the disaster.

According to the Guardian the report says, “Just over half of [the Premier League's] commercial debt has been placed into the [relevant] clubs [or at a holding company level] recently as a result of leveraged buyouts, so far acting principally as a burden rather than to support investment or spending”.

Amazingly (and this is really taking us into fairy land), the EPL has responded to the news of the report by defending the EPL club debt saying that as they earn more they can borrow more. In other words the EPL is resisting the reforms (tiny though they are) at UEFA.

According to the report 47% of the licensed clubs made a loss in 2008. Now let us compare that with the EPL, where as far as I can see only about 15% made a profit, and some of that is dubious as the accounts are hidden in the Virgin Islands.

So the EPL and FA have now cobbled together a new plan, which is to accept UEFAs new rules but to seek an amendment so that “benefactors” can put in money without being accounted for in the new rules. This would allow not only the KGB in Fulham and Manchester Arab to continue as before, but also to allow Aston Hold Your Head Villa, Bolton, Everton and others to continue using their system in which the owner lends more and more money to the club each year.

This is not to suggest that the head holders, for example, spend all the owner’s money on wages – they have built new training facilities and new facilities for supporters – which is what UEFA wants. But as the UEFA model stands that would make no difference unless there were to be a fixed repayment plan (as in a conventional mortgage), and I am not sure that is in place.

AV could find a way out of this if they could fill their ground for each game and get into Europe, without spending any more money (and then avoiding the idea of deliberately getting kicked out of Europe by fielding a weakened team), especially if they schedule the debt repayment over a very long period of time, but that depends on getting an amendment to the rules – which UEFA seem unwilling to give, not least because of the intransigence of the EPL and FA overall.

Arsenal will continue to be safe because the debt on the stadium is being paid off on monthly repayments of the mortgage, and the club is far more profitable as a result of the development of the ground than it was at Highbury. Tottenham will be safe because their accounts are in part hidden off-shore.

Quite what Manchester U and Liverpool can do is unclear. Chelsea and Man City can hope for a rule fudge to allow them to hide the money from the owner, but the condition of Man U and Liverpool is so awful, and they are so flagrantly bust, there is, under the present rules, no way in which they can get a licence to compete in Europe.

Stoke dumped city, they played extra time, They play us on saturday, we should be able to nick that one since we played last at the weekend. But stoke is never gonna be easy. I am following dada on this, we should be ablt to take a win at the brittania. Man u saw west ham off.
On another note, chelsea lost by the same margin as us away in the champs but got an important away goal. Can they beat mourinho at the bridge? the special one is a master of keeping the back door shut after scoring a lone goal

looks like cech has got a long term injury for chelski, that could be quite helpful.

so stoke give man city a 3-1 battering in extra time! on one hand im glad becuase i just hate man city and they were pretty much hoping to win the fa cup this season and on the other hand it gives stoke added confidence which means we are in for an even tougher time on saturday! also another bonus although i dont know how much it will help us is that they had to play extra time and they must be tired after that game! i suppose we will see what the gooners are made of come saturday night!!

@ dada, quite possibly the funniest start to a post on this site for a long time.

And i completetly agree with all you’ve said.

Harry’s charming cockney geezer persona has gone on to long, if he wasn’t english the media would have slaughtered him long ago.

And as far as his dodgy dealings/tax issues, my feelings on this is thier’s no smoke without fire.

So Sol Campbell is a ‘cunt’ for trying to get back the £1.7m he is owed by Pompey in wages.

Those are the words of a mate of mine who happens to be a Tottenham Hotspur supporter.

“He is already loaded the greedy cunt” were the exact charming words.

I agree that Sol Campbell is already loaded. He probably could survive without the £1.7m but that’s not the point. Why shouldn’t he get the money he is owed?

Is it Sol’s fault that he hasn’t been paid?

Put yourself in Campbell’s shoes, would you do the same? I probably would. Not because I’m a greedy cunt but because that is what I am owed.

It is not Campbell’s fault that Portsmouth Football Club are in danger of going bust (I must add, I hope they don’t because I like Pompey) but it is the fault of the management.

The likes of Peter Storrie AND Harry Redknapp have fucked Pompey over. They created the mess at Portsmouth.

Pompey “lived the dream” in recent times. Winning the FA Cup and having ‘fantastic assets on the pitch’. Good time for the Portsmouth faith full.

Despite the good times we were on the verge of a credit-crunch. Did that stop Harry Redknapp spending over £60m on wages and transfers from the summer of 2007 until his departure?

Of course it didn’t because good old Harry only cared about himself. He proved that by fucking off to Tottenham when the going got tough.

Yes, Portsmouth received £5m compensation for his services but it was too late by then. Redknapp knew he had created a monster and jogged on out of Fratton Park quicker than he could fart.

He spoke of Portsmouth as his ‘spiritual home’ so why did he leave them not once but twice? Not only that he also took charge of their most fierce rivals.

Top Geezer that cheeky chappy Redknapp.

When I hear what a great man Harry Redknapp is it frustrates me. He isn’t. He is disloyal and only cares about himself.

I have no doubt that if a club bigger than Tottenham came in for him he would go. When at Portsmouth, he had an interview with Newcastle United. People say he was loyal to Pompey then. He wasn’t. Newcastle wanted Kevin Keegan more. That’s why he stayed.

I think Arsene Wenger gets a raw deal from the media compared to Redknapp. Maybe it is xenophobia. As far as I’m aware Wenger never hides and I’m pretty sure that he never fucked over an entire club. Twice.