Wenger & Stan Match Made in Heaven Serenaded by Gazides Boys

Wenger and Stan are a match made in heaven, they both believe that trophies are unimportant. Neither has put forward a strategy for a trophy winning team, and to be fair they are honest about that. This is not lies by the media, read their lips. Their starting point is sustainability – but how can you get that without a winning team? Well its simple to Kroenke, Arsenal is a brand, a brand he believes, quite correctly, that has been undersold internationally, and a brand that has not maximised its commercial revenue. A brand that is underpaid by its main sponsors.

Now that doesn’t mean that he underestimates the importance of filling the home stadium, he wants to pack that with happy punters who spend on merchandise and respond to sponsors. He comes from a tradition where competition in team sports is not the main thing. There is no relegation, but nerds collect stats and worship players; and now again, once in thirty years you might win a trophy. It’s a country of nostalgic phrases such as “win one for the Gipper”, note it was only one.

In the USA going to the game is not about winning, it’s about identifying with the club and showing your workmates you belong. So why should anyone bother to attend a football club that never wins a trophy, not only that but doesn’t even have a strategy for winning one? How can a club that has an owner and manager that considers 4^th every year the Holy Grail, maintain its attendance? Surely no success on the pitch will mean no success off it.

The answer

These people are not stupid, wrong possibly, but not stupid, they have a different strategy for making cash. What Kroenke first saw was a beautiful stadium, a conference centre and the possibility of more shops. He is a glorified property developer; he knows a good site when he sees one.

But he knows more than that, he knows it’s a mile or two from the city, he could see a club, not a football club, but a club club. Like an old boys club in Mayfair, but more modern, smart casual but wealthy. The football is the added on feature, loads of people belong to footy clubs in Australia that never go to the games.  They go for the Pokies and T bone steaks. He could see that club level and the boxes make as much money as the old Highbury whether the punters turn up or not. That section is an upmarket, modern old boys, and even girls, club.

It remains half empty for the Carling Cup, and lesser European teams, but you can’t buy the tickets they are paid for in advance; hence the discrepancy in the so called attendance figures. True 25 boxes and some club level seats are sold off as hospitality seats at £455 a go for most matches. You get a programme, free drink and sandwiches for that. But then you could get a mighty hangover and lots of grub watching it in a pub and still have £400 change.

Enter the Gazides boys.

The Gazides boys are the young zealots, brought in by Gazides, led by Tom Fox,  committed to maximising Arsenal’s revenue, getting new sponsors such as the exciting Indesit (Who? They make washing machines and fridges), and developing the stadium. In the last year or so hundreds of thousands has been spent on refurbishing club level. Meanwhile the plebs haven’t a place to sit when having a pint. But there are more new comfy restaurants, more new comfy bars, more new faux legends on the walls for the wealthy.  I say faux because none of them were won at the Emirates. No one has won one for the Gipper at the new stadium, but the past runs on an endless loop. But nostalgia isn’t what it used to be, some ingrates want trophies now not in the past.

Meanwhile outside the faces of plebs are flown on flags to keep the masses happy, bread for them and champagne and circus for the plutocracy. Escalators for them, stairs for us, crushed in a lift for the disabled. Even if the team wins nothing they believe that this old boys’ club nouveau will continue to attract the moneyed boys from the city. Whether that will work or not in a depression is debatable, but then if they only cream off a small percentage of the bankers bonuses the revenue will be good.

For the wealthy then there is an awe inspiring club with a meaningful history, with plush surroundings, and now again a great game of football breaks out. Even if Arsenal isn’t that good they can still show their pals, who often support the opposition, the luxury surrounds and possibly a top European club, which unfortunately are not the Gunners. Never an empty seat for Barcelona or Manchester United.

What about the workers?

Well the few that are left in the stadium, I mean the ones watching, not those cleaning up and providing hospitality in the boxes, are not completely ignored. They are to be given the gift of Arsenalisation, this has been rolled out over the last year or so, not as quickly as the refurbishment of club level.

Now the concrete walls are being covered over with Arsenal Memorabilia, Real fans faces stare out from flags around the stadium to remind us what real fans were like. Meanwhile there is still a long wait for the use of the toilets.  You should take a peep at the toilets in club level, no pictures of fans up there, no tacky ads on the walls; in the boxes you get your own bathroom. There doesn’t seem to be much sign of improved bars or eating facilities, perhaps that might come. Meanwhile the Armoury will be expanded to two floors so that more punter art can be sold to the ever growing pilgrimages from Japan and Korea. Meanwhile on the upper tier there is one Arsenal outlet on the whole level.

When the board say they value community work I believe them, it’s part of the method of getting loyalty to the club winning or not.  To quote Gazides, “Arsenal is more than bout football”. Although it took hell of a fight by Ian Shacklock and this blog to get a sports centre installed at Queensland Road.  No doubt the Gazides boys will look for further ways to implant the club into the community, because this way they can get even more sponsorship and more sales. Yes they do a lot of good, as do Tesco’s, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s all about corporate control. Yes it’s about more than football; it’s also about a long term investment by a property man who has never sold one of his clubs.

The Gazides Boys once again

If you talk to the Gazides boys, and I have, they are warm, friendly and highly motivated, they want to grow the club, and they will ask what you want. Should there be social media at every seat? What would you like to see on Arsenal TV (when I replied a proper channel they changed the subject). Would you like Aston Martin as a sponsor (well something like that), what would make the Arsenal experience better for you. The Gazides boys will regale you with tales of demographics and market surveys, and what Gazides last said, especially that, but never anything on football. But if you ask about the link between success on the pitch, or that you would like to see one or two marquee players and a winning team they dry up and spot someone across the room they haven’t seen in ages.

Gazides was never appointed to pursue the football side, apart from doing Wenger's bidding, Wenger would never have allowed it, for even he had to admit the commercial side is underdeveloped, and the appointment didn’t seem to impinge on his area of responsibilities.

Gazides is a rabbi, a conciliator, but even he had  conflict with Wenger over touring abroad, and Wenger is still moaning about it. Without the tour the Gazides boys can’t earn their worth. How will it develop revenues abroad if Wenger’s losers don’t tour? What a pity they didn’t do it when they were invincible.

But happy or not Wenger does get one great benefit from putting up with it all, he has an owner who doesn’t care if he wins trophies or not. He has a job for life running a beautiful stadium, he has the best training facilities in the world. Soon he will have a state of the art medical facility, don’t be churlish.  Seven million a year and job security, and a job you love doing; it’s not bad is it? Beats having a train set and an unlimited supply of home brew.

OK so what’s new

Perhaps nothing is new, most readers know all this already, and some think it’s a good idea, we live in a corporate world we have to lick its backside. Other moan about the price of a pint or a pie. God knows why, there are plenty of good pies and pints on sale yards away from the ground. Yes the prices are high, and most kids on the surrounding estates will never afford to attend until in their late twenties, and by then they might not care. But this is not about prices, but what you get for the price pay. That is champagne prices and bitter- shandy football.

But most fans know all this but their brain and heart don’t quite engage.  I know that I do that, I forget that I am now part of a corporate brand.  I forget that football is now controlled as tightly as the kettled masses in Parliament Square, so as not to frighten the horses. I expect to see a team that really wants to win and get upset when they don’t. But my brain and heart are more engaged these days, I realise it’s not worth the stress. I take each result as it comes, Chelsea was an unexpected and glorious bonus, I wasn’t surprised at the flat response against Marseille, hopefully that will prevent losing against WBA again.

In the end it’s the hope that kills you; fans tell me we can win the league, that we can win the CL, we can win the Cup and so on. Of course it’s all a possibility, I think it’s unlikely, but a possibility nonetheless. However, if Arsenal did win one for the Gipper it would be the first time it happened by pure chance; because Stan, Arsene, and the Gazides boys aren’t planning for it; but there is compensation – sustainability. No doubt as you watch Arsenal finish 4^th, or thereabouts for the 20^th time in a row, or get knocked out in the first knockout round of the CL, or lose another final against a championship team sustainability will be a consolation for you.

Just a final word of caution, the sustainability model could also be considered a model for stagnation for the playing side of the business. Businesses that are happy to stagnate often die out, but there again I don’t want a club that’s just a business.