Charles Brooker
Gooners are currently at loggerheads with one and other over a range of things - Wenger Out, Wenger in, Black Scarf Movement, Usmanov is a naughty man, Kroenke is a naughty man, or just Piers Morgan using his media persona to spout rubbish about Arsenal. Either way, it isn’t a very united front.
The biggest problem is the lack of knowledge anyone has. Any paper can pull out a story with a “club insider” – The Mail tend to do this best, when they publish a totally unverified pile of tosh on which they don’t even have the guts to put the name of their journalist, just a blanket of “Sportsmail Reporter”. But you can’t really blame these hack journalists (yes I am writing an article having been sat in my bedroom for four days in my pants like a true blogger!) because they want to write about it but can’t because of the club’s lockdown on information.
Red and White Holdings have obviously caused a storm with their open letter, but I don’t want to get bogged down in the details of that because I am not aware of enough of the facts or truths of it, and it would be irresponsible of me to do so. However, from an uninformed perspective, a number of the points did strike a chord, even if it was deemed opportunistic.
The club’s lack of transparency is the real problem. I understand that Mr Kroenke has this “Silent Stan” reputation to protect, and he doesn’t want to open himself up to abuse, but I really feel his silence is damaging his own reputation more. Most importantly it is damaging Arsenal Football Club. There was an excellent article by Amy Lawrence about the damage done by the boardroom rift. (Ed's note - for html coding reasons I won't bore you with, I can't link to the article, so just google 'Amy Lawrence Arsenal Owners' and it will show up at the top of the list) It is obviously causing the players to feel that the club is unstable, and I don’t even know if Arsène Wenger is fully aware of what the plan is.
The worst thing for the supporters is not knowing. You just have to look at any forum or comments section to see people tearing strips off each other about various hypotheses and what might happen. A lack of information tends to lead to people becoming hysterical.
The Club are their own worst enemies, though. Arsenal.com seems to win awards hand over fist for being such a good website but, if Alistair Campbell was half as good as the Arsenal spin team, Tony Blair would still be grinning smugly and probably be facing 98% popularity ratings as he becomes PM of Europe and the Euro problems have disappeared because they have accepted the Pound! There are a number of things that stink about the current Arsenal setup - the ‘new’ badge was the start of commercialisation but a necessary evil; at least we still play in red and white (and blue) unlike the Cardiff situation.
The real pet peeve of mine is the stadium announcements of seat numbers. This has been addressed by the Chief Executive and he said it is because “the club get complaints from fans who couldn’t get tickets. With all due respect, this is utter nonsense. I bet the first thing Mr Gazidis looks at on a Monday morning is the REAL attendance. This is about the most important factor for the club because it is such a key figure in terms of revenue and fan satisfaction. After all, if people are shelling out £30-60 on tickets and not even turning up, it speaks volumes. The club don’t want this information to be shared because it can be interpreted. This sums up the club’s media policy. Oh, and anyone who ‘likes’ Arsenal on Facebook will be aware that they only update on the score when Arsenal score. This is so pathetic. A good example of this would be the 8-2. You would have got an update at half time saying “GOAL Walcott has scored, 3-1”, then have to wait until the 74th minute for “Goal RvP has scored, 7-2”. I take back pathetic, pathetic doesn’t cover it. How about pitiful, tragic or moronic.
It is slightly different with transfers, I like that Arsenal keep quiet about how much they spend on players, sell players for and the salaries; it shows class.
Whether Stan Kroenke is looking to asset-strip Arsenal, make a tidy profit by hovering in the Champions League positions, or just build up funds for if Financial Fair Play does take hold, then spend the enormous profit we have been making recently on making Arsenal unstoppable, it would be very nice to know.
Robin van Persie said it best when he said "This is an update for the fans about my current situation. I have kept quiet all this time out of respect and loyalty for the club and as agreed with Mr. Gazidis and Mr. Wenger, but since there is so much speculation in the media, I think it is fair for you guys to know what’s really going on at the moment.”
Come on Mr Kroenke, Its good to talk!
