Morning,
obviously the main topic of conversation today is Emmanuel Adebayor and Man City. Reports began to emerge yesterday that the club bought by Mustapha Million had made a bid for the player and were ‘in talks’ with Arsenal. Apparently contact was made over the weekend and former Arsenal player Brian Marwood, now part of City’s administration team, is involved in the negotiations.
The consensus appears to be a fee of around £25m with Adebayor set to earn a salary of up to £170,000, although the £130,000 reported elsewhere makes more sense. I mean that relative to the £170,000. Stepping back and looking at it it’s hard to get your head around it. As the man from East Lower says:
To ‘reward’ Adebayor for scoring 30 goals, Arsenal doubled his salary last summer. And now, to ‘reward’ him for being 50% as prolific, City intend to double it again. Half as good – twice as well rewarded.
Now really, what kind of industry does that?
That is a very good question but it’s an industry that has been utterly skewed by a small minority who fling cash around like it’s Monopoly money. Madrid have spent £150m+ on three players, City are offering monstrous wages and can probably tempt clubs into selling by offering all the cash in one go instead of a spread of payments like most transfers, while Chelsea have been huge spenders since Abramovich took over.
City yesterday completed the signing of Carlos Tevez. He turned down the chance to stay with United, a team that consistently challenges for the most important trophies each season, to go play for their local rivals who aren’t even in Europe. Money talks. Great huge sums of money talk. And while we can sit here and tut and shake our heads, the fact is that money talks in every industry, not just football. Get an offer to double your salary in your day to day life and chances are you’d consider it.
If we were footballers we’d like to think we’d be above that. If we were earning £80,000 a week at Arsenal the lure of £50,000 more or £90,000 would count for nothing. We’d have some loyalty. The reality is though that we’re Arsenal fans, players are just players who, for the most part, will go where the conditions ar best, where the money is best, where their ego is pampered most.
You can’t expect loyalty, even from a bloke whose salary you more than doubled the summer before. If this offer is real, if City are really offering us £25m for Adebayor then we will take the money, especially if we can do a deal to get it in one lump. If City are really offering Adebayor £130,000 a week then he will sign for them and it won’t cost him a thought.
Would it make sense on a footballing level? Adebayor has scored 46 goals in two seasons, a very healthy return by any standards. However, we know all about the problems, I’m not going to rehash them today, and it’s widely known that the manager is prepared to sell him and was prepared to sell him last summer if the right offer had come in.
Arsene Wenger was hardly unequivocal when asked about Adebayor’s future, saying he could stay if he wanted, and the fact that he has quite obviously lined up Bordeaux’s Marouane Chamakh to replace Adebayor says a lot.
There are those who will say that by selling Adebayor and bringing in Chamakh we make ourselves weaker. I suppose on paper it might look that way but if Chamakh comes in he’s added to forward line-up which also includes Robin van Persie, Eduardo, Andrei Arshavin, Nicklas Bendtner, Carlos Vela and possibly Theo Walcott. There are more than enough goals there to compensate for Adebayor’s departure.
If the remainder of the money is used to fund the central midfielder we’re all looking for then I don’t think we’re weaker at all. We’re stronger. Are we making City better? Maybe so but City can buy anyone they want, and there are better players than Adebayor out there, in my opinion.
So, we’ll have to wait and see what happens but to my mind if this deal is genuine then it’s in our interests to take it – provided the money we earn from the sale is reinvested into the squad. A £20m+ profit on a player who cost far less than the £6m mooted at the time of his arrival is fantastic business but that profit must be used to strengthen the team.
In other news it looks as if our executive team is being added to. In the Ivan Gazidis interview last week the CEO spoke about improving Arsenal’s income from a marketing point of a view and reports suggest ‘veteran sports marketer’ Tom Fox will be joining the club. You can read more about him here.
The Mirror reports we’re about to nick one of Chelsea’s youngest stars. Midfielder Frank Nouble is rated one of their most exciting talents but has refused to sign a new deal and speculation is he’s coming our way. At 17 though he’s just another one to add to the list of exciting young players at the club, if he comes.
The BBC’s business editor takes a look at Arsenal’s finances. Interesting but surely the document commissioned by Usmanov will naturally take a negative view on things to try and convince people that his rights issue offer appears more attractive? It seems rather a lot to suggest a £20m fall in earnings. Anyway, it’s worth a read.
So, there you go. Not a lot else happening but you have to imagine that if the Adebayor deal goes through it’ll spark all kinds of stories about how, when and on who we’re going to spend the money. The quiet time may be over.
Till tomorrow.
