Yesterday, Ivan Gazidis answered many questions from the Arsenal Supporters. He made it clear that Arsenal have funds to spend. It is now AW's prerogative to decide spend or not. Over here, we will you give you the most interesting ones. You can find the full Q & A over here.
1. Q: Why did we give Manchester United the title by selling them Robin van Persie?
IG: It’s one of the most difficult decisions we’ve ever had to make. I understand the people that say we should have let his contract run down and I accept that what happened is difficult to agree with. Our motivation was not to pocket £24m, it was a decision about how best to develop our team’s potential with the choices that we had- all of which were bad. It hurts me to see him score goals and win the league with Manchester United, of course I don’t feel happy or good about myself seeing that.
2. Q: Yes, but why didn’t the club incentivise him to stay? Whether it be through goal bonuses or bonuses for winning trophies?
IG: Financial incentives are not always the issue. Robin van Persie is a guy who always gave his best, both for Arsenal and now for Manchester United. Financial incentives weren’t all that was important to him.
3. Q: You’ve been quoted as saying that the club has to reconsider the flat wage structure in order to pay the best players the best salaries. Yet just a few weeks ago Arsene Wenger said he decides what players are paid and that he prefers a ‘socialist’ wage structure. Can you confirm that player salaries are your responsibility?
IG: Where we start is assessment of talent before we even think about the wages. Arsene assesses the talent. Once he makes that assessment we look at how to fit it in. We’re going to have to pay market rates and we’re going to have to evolve. I think the situation will evolve so that top players will earn more and players in the middle will stay about the same. So our structure will have to evolve.
Arsene is completely on board with that. He is not afraid to pay world class money for world class talent. We have never said that there was an absolute structure and I’m not sure I know which comments from Arsene you were referring to. We’ve competed against clubs that have spent much more than us and overall- I know that’s a word Arsene likes to use a lot- we think he has done a good job.
4. Q: What are the specific roles of yourself, Dick Law and Stan Kroenke and what would you say are your successes on the playing side?
IG: I have been asked what it is I do before but much less politely than that, so thank you! We have an owner that hasn’t put any debt on the club, who hasn’t taken any management fees, he doesn’t treat the club as his own personal fiefdom or as his plaything. He’s respectful of the club’s freedom. We’re lucky to have an owner with a vast experience in sports and sports ownership, with significant contacts and he’s supported the club very tangibly. A lot of our commercial successes are down to his knowledge.
My job is off the field, to represent the club and supporting the manager and his footballing conditions. Dick Law works with me and Arsene in negotiation of player deals, he has vast experience in that, he speaks 5 different languages and flies all around the world to negotiate deals. Arsene is in charge of the talent and myself and Dick Law give him support.
5. Q: Arsene Wenger says, in his words, that he’s only interested in super quality players. Yet we’ve seen some far from super quality players arrive. You’ve spoken about the money available to him. Is Arsene Wenger committed to spending it and spending it on more expensive, better quality players?
IG: Arsene is committed to top class that he believes in. That’s not always necessarily the most expensive. Santi Cazorla wasn’t that expensive but he is top class. Now I’m not sending a message that all deals will be like Cazorla so everything will be alright. But any deal starts with the talent with the manager believes in. We believe in his judgement, if we didn’t, we’d have the wrong man. We think he has done an outstanding job in this environment.
We have always made the money we generate available to him to spend, it’s a very simple philosophy. That hasn’t been enough to compete with a club like Manchester United and Chelsea and Manchester City. Where Arsene has done an outstanding job is to stay in the mix of the top teams, not where we want to be, but in the mix, on a relatively limited budget. He is not scared to spend money but he has to believe he is getting a top class player. The parameters in which he has to operate is to spend what the club can afford and my job is to make that as big as possible and Arsene’s job is to think about which talent he wants to spend that on in the best way possible.
It’s absolutely a joint mission between myself, Arsene and Stan Kroenke to put Arsenal at the top of world football. We haven’t gone forwards, but we haven’t gone backwards either. Now we have to go forwards. You’re asking me to guarantee that money will all be spent. But it also depends on what talent is available. If we only find one player that we like, we won’t spend twice as much on him just so we can say we spent all of the money. That doesn’t make any sense to me. The key will be to buy the players Arsene Wenger believes in.
6. Q: You’ve spoken a lot about Bayern this evening. Is there any chance we’ll ever hear you say what Uli Hoeness said recently about ticket pricing?
IG: They are in a different environment in the Bundesliga. You look at this year’s Champions League final between two great clubs and two great teams. I think there’s a lot we can learn from the Bundesliga. I’ve been a big fan for more than a decade. Their model on ticket pricing is very different and the way they make their money is very different. They have relatively low ticket pricing and very high commercial revenues.
One of things coming into Arsenal that was very clear to me was that we were too dependent on local revenue streams and now we’re moving towards ‘spreading the burden’ if you like and diversifying those revenue streams. We hadn’t really grasped the international value of our brand and commercialised that. We’ve relied hugely on our ticket revenue streams, but as our commercial revenues grow and actually, as our broadcast revenues grow, it balances our revenue in a better way and it takes some of the pressure off. I cannot tell you that we’re going to go the whole way of the Bundesliga, because their model is very different, but if we develop our commercial revenue streams, it takes the pressure off of local revenues.
7. Q: Is there any prospect of a stadium capacity increase and what are the club doing to encourage a better atmosphere in the ground?
IG: We’re in a good place with capacity and due to the stadium design, it’s not easy to extend anyway. We think 60,000 is about right for us. With regards to atmosphere, we’ve looked at things inside the stadium and made some changes to make it more welcoming. It’s been challenging to get like minded fans together, which certainly contributes to a better atmosphere inside. I know there’s a long tradition of fans going to the pub before games and we don’t want to stop that, that’s how I went to football before I worked here. But we have worked to make the place more welcoming. If we can get food at the right prices- and I think I’m right in saying we have some of the cheapest pies in the league here now (said with wry smile), then we hope we can help create a more welcoming environment.
Source : Arseblog News
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