Let the Arabs take over Arsenal
Posted by arsenalist on June 12, 2007
This is awesome news, not because they’re Arabs but because they have money. These are people who wipe their ass with the kind of money Barcelona would pay for an Henry transfer. All this weight put on English ownership is overrated, it doesn’t matter who your owner is anymore. We live in the world of capitalization and globalization so it doesn’t matter where your boss is from as long as he can pay the bills. And we all know Arabs can pay bills. Since they can’t buy their country a decent squad (I mean, how many citizenships can you dole out?) they’ve decided to do it internationally and we all should be thankful to that.
All this depressing talk of “we can’t buy players this year because we built a stadium” goes out the window and we can give Arsene Wenger a good-sized transfer budget, something where he can negotiate more then just backup goalies and Julio Baptista. The best part about having Arabs as owners is they don’t know anything about football so there’s a decent chance that they’re smart enough not to meddle with club affairs and player decisions, and would likely give the manager free reigns to produce results.
Arabs also don’t like rebuilding programs and neither do most supporters. Even though we’re in the middle of a youth movement there’s a decent chance that we’ll make a purchase or two to win now as opposed to wait for success as financial returns tend to be a top priority for businessmen. So if Sheikh Al Whoever wants to buy Arsenal I wouldn’t mind and if anything, would welcome the move as it’ll pump in the money we need. What has having an English owner bought us recently that we should be skeptical of foreign ownership? I remember Wenger praising Arsenal for being an English owned club right after Man Utd got bought out by AIG. I thought he was being a bit too nostalgic and perhaps even stuck in the traditional aspect of things and unnecessarily gave weight to club ownership.
Man Utd and Chelsea have won the last three titles and does anybody care about their owners. No. It’s about time Arsenal saw some of that foreign oil money, it’s been long overdue. We’re already an international squad in many respects, how many English players do we have? Walcott, Hoyte and…….yeah, not exactly any more notables out there. Our sponsor is foreign, our players are foreign, our manager is foreign, our superstar is foreign so why shouldn’t our owner be foreign. I’m not sure what having a local owner buys you except that maybe the guy might be a genuine fan of the team but does that really matter? I don’t care if Sheikh Al Tycoon prefers the sport of ______ instead of football, as long as he’s paying attention to the financial needs of the club and sees a big enough profit to add another 60 Hummers to his entourage, who cares what he’s like.
June 12, 2007 at 9:56 pm
I’m not opposed to foreign ownership as long the club is winning silverware. Given a choice I would take local ownership any day because you know a good chunk of the revenue will be spent locally unlike if UAE folk take over.
June 12, 2007 at 11:08 pm
I agree that I would rather have an Arab oil magnate takeover the club simply so it doesn’t descend into 500m pounds of debt or whatever the Utd. figure is. The reality is, keeping up with the Joneses will become harder and harder without some kind of hard cash influx and the club needs to deal with this pragmatically and without rose coloured glasses for English ownership.
BTW you mentioned Clichy along with Walcott as our only English players. I know you meant Hoyte, but just a heads up. ;)
June 12, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Yeah, sorry. Hoyte. They even look alike.
July 18, 2007 at 7:10 am
hi all interesting blog
why not check out the arsenal forum for genunine gooners
check it out at
http://s4.invisionfree.com/The_Arsenal/
July 30, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Hi Arsenalist,
I’m an Arab, and would like to clarify few things.
First of all we don’t wipe our arses with money.
Secondly, not having a professional football system nor good players in our countries doesn’t mean that we don’t know shit about football as you have stated. You speak about us “Arabs” like you know us better than we know ourselves. We know a lot about football and not to be offensive, but we might know even more than you do. Sheikh Al (Whoever) as you named him, is an Arsenal big fan and he has attended many games in Highbury (not sure about emirates though).
So, unluckily if he takes over the club he will interfer in signings and all that. Wenger will not have the free reigns you have talked about.
Anyway, in my point of view I think the local ownership is the best for the club. As I don’t want to see the club turning into an investment business and rather see it stays as a football club.
Nice blog anyway. Keep it up but keep away from Arabs :)
October 6, 2007 at 10:43 pm
Heh. The level of crap proposals done by desperate fans in the summer is really unbelievable. This is just another example. Nothing personal, arsenalist, but you really got carried away here.