More on Arsenal’s Money

Arsenal chief executive Ivan Gazidis is now claiming that if Arsenal were to miss the Champions League next season, the financial impact would be “not dramatic.” I don’t want to exaggerate the extent of the problems Arsenal are facing—the financial results they released yesterday were really strong, and it’s not as though the Highbury Square setbacks are going to sink the club. But how is missing out on £30 million in potential revenue “not dramatic” to a club whose first-half profits were £24.5 million? I understand that it’s their policy not to budget that money in advance, but…really?

Speaking of the Highbury Square developments, Matt Scott at the Guardian is reporting that a single investor in Singapore is holding up the club’s plans by failing to pay for the more than 100 apartments he’s committed to purchasing. There’s a lot of interesting material in the report, as well as this unexplained sentence: “The board has been keen to stress that…they could, in theory, walk away from the construction project, leaving the headache to the banks.” Again…really? And can I have a loan like that?