Arsenal & Barcelona: Leaders In World Football Yet So Far Apart
By DariusAs the Catalans roll into town, the news wires, tabloid columns and air waves are filled with all manner of hyperbole and little to do with football.
It’s all about the romance of Cesc Fabregas playing against his boyhood team before he allegedly joins them; about the return of Thierry Henry to Arsenal; and pretty much about Barcelona steam rolling Arsenal (that’s what they say anyway if you believe them).
I’ve rarely commented on the fiction and tabloid diarrhoea that seems to occupy journalists from both countries who seem obsessed with forcing Fabregas to move to Barcelona. If the Arsenal captain farted, they’d find a story to go with it – like how the young Catalan can’t cope with Arsenal’s diet and therefore will be leaving for Barca in the summer.
Even so, we’re going to steer clear of the suffocating shit stirring that will occupy us until kick-off tomorrow night at 7.45 pm.
There’s a reason why the matches between Arsenal and Barcelona are generating interest all over the world. It’s undoubtedly the long overdue meeting between two of the best free flowing and exciting teams in world football.
They are teams that thrive on an attacking and scintillating brand of football. While some might point that this attacking mentality tends to throw defensive discipline away in the case of both teams, football purists would argue ”so what! It’s bloody exciting”
I think that regardless of the results of the two-legged tie, if you can’t enjoy the spectacle of two exhilarating teams coming at each other without inhibition, then you shouldn’t be watching football at all.
But why is it that Arsenal and Barcelona can command so much respect around the world for their brand of scintillating football?
Granted, Barcelona may have been at it for a bit longer as Arsenal pretty much went back to the drawing board following the dismantling of the ’Invincibles’. However, the ethos and philosophy of both clubs is admirable.
In a lot of ways, one of the most intriguing things about the last generation of Arsenal players is that they were never as successful in Europe as this current crop of players. Even the ’Invincibles’ really struggled to reach the heights that this current Arsenal team has reached in Europe, despite the accolades they collected domestically; and despite the superstars they had in the team.
I think in there, lies the answer to the evolution of the current Arsenal side. I suspect it’s a factor many people still obsessed with a certain brand of football that combines power with technique fail to see time and time again.
This current Arsenal team is normally and unfairly compared to the ’Invincibles’ and this is wrong in a lot of respects. For one, the ’Invincibles’ were at the peak of their careers and this is not the case with the core of the current Arsenal side.
Secondly, Wenger has slowly moved away from the archetypal team of the last decade, and slowly focussed on a core of mobile, pacy and technically gifted players.
The football establishment , stuck in their time warp of Neolithic ideas of what football should be like, have been quick at beating this Arsenal side with a very big stick. The team has been accused of being light-weight, not being strong enough and not showing the brute force seen elsewhere in the football league, etc.
Not enough credit is given to this Arsenal side for the distance they have travelled and the evolution they have shown in the game. Even more annoying, are the misguided truths and inconvenient lies that suggest that this brand of Wengerball is ineffective and doesn’t work.
I read a fascinating article yesterday on Untold Arsenal that blows one of the myths about Arsenal not being ’clinical’ in front of goal. This is a myth peddled day in, day out until it has become fact among the pundits and hacks – yet the plain truth is that Arsenal are the most lethal and clinical team in the EPL and in Europe.
Don’t believe me? Read Jerome Harwood’s article about this on Untold Arsenal.
By evolving the team, Wenger has made it more effective in Europe, while still keeping it very competitive domestically. In a lot of ways, the only other team that compares to this is Barcelona.
Structurally and in terms of the technical capability of the team, Barcelona and Arsenal are very similar. The two clubs operate with players of the same mould physically and technically, and aspire to the same virtues of total football.
Arsenal’s misfortune is that they play in a league that is peppered with teams that prefer to use an unsavoury brand of brute force disguised as commitment and grit. They play more with teams that thrive on physicality with a ’kick and chase’ mentality.
Over the last few years, the Gunners have learnt how to take care of themselves on the pitch and they continue to balance the physicality needed with the vision of playing scintillating football.
In truth, the media, pundits and hacks still harp on about Arsenal being ‘weak and lightweight’ – yet there is no evidence of this. Mind you, I differentiate physicality from the cowardice of kicking Arsenal players off the park, carrying out cynical rotational fouling, and literally breaking legs of Arsenal players in late challenges. There’s a difference between being physical in a contact sport and being violent.
Despite these similarities that put Arsenal and Barca head and shoulders over many teams in the world when it comes to playing total football, the two clubs couldn’t be so far apart.
When it comes to club management and administration, Arsenal are light years ahead of the Catalans. In recent times, football finance and football debts have been a key area of concern, and for the foreseeable future, there’s no getting away from the fact that you need to balance football with proper financial stability to survive for the future.
Just as an example, last year, Barcelona’s debt stood at €350m and they made a profit of €8.8m, despite winning 6 trophies. Arsenal on the other hand made half year profits this financial year of over £35m, and managed to reduce the mortgage on Emirates stadium by a staggering £100m.
Arsenal’s strategy is clearly to drive down the mortgage repayments over the next 2 or 3 years, while still remaining very competitive. This despite all manner of doubters including a handful of Arsenal fans who’d rather see Arsenal spend that money on so called ’big name’ players.
The fact of the matter is that Arsenal at the moment are at the cusp of something great, and will in 2 or 3 years, be debt free of the stadium mortgage. Not only will we have a squad capable of challenging domestically and in Europe, the club will also have an obscene amount of ’organic’ money to use to develop the squad and move the club into total domination of the game in years to come.
Not even Barcelona will be able to match that, and it’s hard to see any club in the world that will be generating tens of millions of pounds every year.
While we wait for the rest of the football world to catch up with Arsenal’s vision and financial stability and superiority off the pitch, we can marvel at Arsenal’s technical superiority on the pitch against a team that is also technically superior.
Like I said, regardless of the results against Barcelona, if you can’t enjoy the game, then you need to stop following football.
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Tue 13th September 2011; 19:45, Dortmund
Nice post Darius, I just hope that this game lives up to all the hype
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Darius,
Not sure about themoney being used to pay back “the mortgage2 as you call it. Most of the remianing debt is in the form of bonds. Have these not got early repayment penalties attached? In any case with long term fixed rates applying to them, the debt servicing is pretty comfortable. The dividend is going to come from not having to finance any other debt around the property portfolio. Hence all free cash flow above and beyond debt repayments and operating costs will be available to further develop the club. As we have seeen over the last year, we have tied down around 15 of the younger plauyers to long contracts. This is where some of the money will go. No doubt the scouting and youth sdevelopment areas will be further developed. What about buying superstars? I think we may see the odd top player coming in but certainly don’t expect to be inundated by a tidal wave of them. Football finances are in a parlous way in both Spain and UK so I would expect wages to remain fairly constant or fall. If we can maintain and develop revenues (another area which has and will continue to see further investment as we catch up from the largely missed opportunities of the Dein years), we will be looking at a very, very bright future.
The future starts tomorrow with the two most attractive club sides in world football being thrown together. This is just the start. Come on you reds.
CER – I’m not in the best position to comment on the relationship of the debt structure with regards to bonds issued earlier, but the overall strategy has been to systematically bring down the mortgage commitments.
I know for example that the covenants that governed our lending has some restrictions on the split and usage of revenues to maintain a balance between investment and debt repayment, but Arsenal has this far, not been in danger of defaulting on this as the repayment of the mortgage is almost certainly organic from match day revenues – even if we only make the champions league once every 4 years.
Perhaps some of the SCA readers have different views about the debt structure at Arsenal – though I’m pretty confident that the net result is to get Arsenal as ‘debt free’ (from the Emirates stadium mortgage) as quickly as possible.
Even if you account for dividends after that, the money available for squad investment will be in the 10s of millions every year.
I don’t expect that Arsenal will go all galactic on our arses even then – but I expect that there’s going to be a sprinkling of signings of experienced players to plug the holes as we go.
But just to come back to the overall point I was making – once the stadium debt has been addressed (however the debt is structured) then it’s hard to see how any club in Europe will match Arsenal financial stability, hence success on the pitch.
Excellent piece darius, we are of a mind when it comes to world domination.
As regards paying down the debt, I;m not so sure either. It seems that most of the profit came from the sales at Highbury. That won’t be an income stream for much longer. Our actual performance financially wasn’t so good as we might like. The Emirates deal, in particular, seems to be holding us back.
Not that I know much about finance, I’m broke myself. However, someone recently posted this link on ACLF, I think:
http://swissramble.blogspot.com/2010/03/i-owe-you-nothing.html
Interesting stuff for those with an interest in these things. Me, I want to see us in the strongest position possible from which to piss on all those clubs who have cheated and bought their way to their debased prizes. I want that very, very much.
Consolsbob.
From what I understand, the profits from real estate in the Highbury project have indeed contributed to bringing down the debt, but organic revenues like match day receipts and merchandising are well within the margins for paying down the stadium debt that was originally structured for 17 years.
From this understanding, it makes sense to use those profits to bring down that mortgage as opposed to flashing it down the pan ala Chelsea and Man City for perishable assets like big name players.
I still think that once Arsenal is debt free (from the stadium), we will still be in a much stronger position financially with a model that is capable of turning out a tidy profit. There’s also a lot of mileage to go with expanding the Arsenal brand abroad.
I know for instance that Arsenal (and unfortunately Man United) are the most revered and supported clubs in Africa and Asia – but we haven’t this far exploited the markets like Manure have done.
But coming back to your point about the Highbury square profits, it makes more business sense to use it to bring down the debt, rather than go gung-ho with it.
Forbes magazine already ranks Arsenal as the 3rd richest football club (2009) in the Wworld and in that assessment, their is recognition that are debt is purely tied to a tangible asset that is the Emirates stadium – as opposed to the front runners Real Madrid and Manure, who have paper debt thrust onto them by crazy owners/directors.
The future is bright my friend, the future is Arsenal.
I agree with your response Darius. That seems to be and should be the strategy for the capital recipts that we get from property deals. Yes, i am sure that we will pay down the mortgage as quickly as possible. I took your post to suggest that this could be done in 2 or 3 years. On re reading it that is perhaps not what you meant!
Onwards and Upwards.
Darius, Clockendrider, Consolbob:
All of you are right with regards to the debt: About 250m Pounds of the debt is in the form of 25 year bonds. The rest are in various tranches with varying maturities. So we’ll be paying off some part of the debt always, with the 25 year bonds being the last off the books.
The surplus after debt servicing will ofcourse go into the activities clockendrider highlights.
The Emirates deal indeed seems disadvantageous now Consolbob.
But at the time it was a pioneering deal, infact a record for a British club to secure such monies in exchange for naming rights and sponsorship. Given that payments from Emirates were front loaded, it enabled us to get favourable terms on our debt too.
Ofcourse, the Glazers rewrote the book with their Aon deal. But despite securing such a deal, we’d do well to recollect they only booked a profit last year on the back of Ronaldo’s sale.
In hindsight, Arsenal might have erred on the side of conservatism with this deal. But that’s always better than being neck deep in debt, and depending on selling the family silver to keep head above water.
If this Arsenal side finishes strongly both domestically and in Europe we’ll be in a strong position to renegotiate the deal with Emirates too.
Can’t wait for the Barcelona game.
Thanks Saloner. Good stuff.
Nor can I!