13 Jul 2013

ARSENAL`S TRANSFER POLICY: A CALL FOR CHANGE

It is no longer news to football enthusiast, especially, premier league followers that, Arsenal Football Club is going on the 10th season without premier league trophy in the kitting and the 9th season since it won her last trophy.
Analyst have attributed this dwindling fortune to Arsene Wenger`s prudent spending and inability to bring big names as well as quality players to the club.

However, we must bear in mind that prior to 2003; the club was active in the transfer window. For instance in 1999, when Thiery Henry joined arsenal for £10.5m but the year before saw world transfer record broken for £21.5m by a Spanish club side Real Betis.
The announcement of plans to move to a new (Emirates)stadium in 2003, which eventually gulped the sum of £390,000,000 out of which includes a loan of £260,000,000 can be said to be a major reason for the policy of investing in youth development rather than dole out a huge amount for the services of a single player. This decision has so far proved to be successful in terms of recouping cash from player(s) sales but also inefficient in terms of trophy room decoration at least in the last ten years.
Since the implementation of this policy, the club has been able to raise young stars and as well bring in players, who are relatively not expensive in the transfer market, make them world class players and then sell them at higher price. Young players such as Ashley Cole, Cesc Fabregas and Gael Clichy, are few of the players who went through the youth ranks of arsenal and were sold to other clubs.
Other players, such as Kolo Toure, Emmanuel Adebayor, Samir Nasri and Robin Van Persie are some of the recent transfers from arsenal that has seen them smile to the bank with huge sum of money.
But the question here is, while the club is making up a balanced accounting book, how has the trophy room been fairing? The past ten years has seen Arsenal fans cry gruesomely for a major trophy even if it`s the League Cup. During this period clubs like Manchester United and Chelsea have won the Premier League titles, F.A Cup and European titles. On several occasions they’ve been quite close to picking up a gold medal only to lose it at the later or final stage. One of those memorable, but painful moments was the 2006 UEFA Champions League Final, where Arsenal lost to Barcelona 2-1, and also a couple of League Cup Final against Chelsea and Birmingham.
Analyst have attributed this recent lack of trophy to arsenal`s policy of not wanting to invest in the transfer market. While some others have also questioned the clubs policy of letting their players go after investing in them and at their peak.
Now, you don’t win trophies by letting your best players go every season. If a club decides to invest in youth development and at the same time wants to win trophies then it must learn to keep those players that it has trained over the years. Most recently, Song and RVP were the notable names to leave the club in the same season and these were unarguably the best arsenal players the season before.
I believe that a club that really wants to succeed will hold on to its best players and even bring in more to complement them. As much as the club is trying to have a balanced financial book and pay debts, it must also know that fans are interested in seeing them lift trophies. Fans are not interested in the financial booklet of clubs but how much trophy it can boast of year in year out. Clubs like Barcelona have invested so much in the youth, yet they still buy quality players in the transfer market and this has made them the most successful club in the world in the last five years. There`s nothing wrong in investing in young players, but not being able to keep them and sometimes allowing them move to rival club (like RVP) is a big problem.
The club must review its policy by tilting towards being more active in the transfer window by signing more quality players that will complement the efforts of youth’s development if the trend is to change in the nearest future.
Again, the club has to look into the policy of not giving their star players above the age of 30 more than one year contract. This is also the reason you have players leave before then because they may be forced out of the club, hence they try to get a more lucrative deal in other clubs.
The club also must review its wage structure to ensure that quality players are lured to the club. Theo Walcott is the clubs highest paid player with a weekly wage of £100,000 as against Manchester United`s Wayne Rooney who scoops more than double Theo`s figure weekly. Football they say is business and business is money. You have to spend good money in the transfer market to see that you attract the best to your club; otherwise, the club could lose several of the big players and may run for many more years without anything to show for it other than making profit financially.
By Chucks Afuwah
chukzytweety@yahoo.com
@afuwahchucks

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