The dust has barely settled on his move to Henry’s move to Barcelona and the media now have the opportunity to put words into the Chairman’s mouth with a little help from him along the way. Speaking in the Daily Telegraph Peter Hill-Wood said of Henry’s rationale about his move being influenced by DD’s departure and AW contract situation,
I am not particularly worried about what Thierry said but whether it really influenced his decision or not we will have to wait and see. We certainly don’t think Thierry Henry going and Arsene Wenger’s contract situation are in any way linked. That was just an excuse
Which is remarkably similar to the majority view that I have seen, naysayers apart. Moving onto AW’s contract,
I am really hopeful he will extend but at this moment I am only in a position of hoping, I’ve no reason to think that he won’t but at the same time I have no reason to believe he will say yes. Certainly we would like to see him sign a new contract - we have made no secret about that. But we have not talked any details about anything with him or the board. We will wait and see what he wants to do. Then we can sit down and discuss things if he is positive about it. I am very relaxed. We are in good shape
So it is unclear whether the speculation about him being offered a new contract in the near future is just that or whether there is an offer on the table. The comments though are perfectly reasonable but are going to be interpreted as him fearing the worst because the last two sentences are the key to that. Remove them and people will just see ‘if he is positive about it‘ and interpret that as ‘Ooh, the Board don’t know what’s going on. Arsene’s really upset by the departures because he’s negative about it‘. One thing is certain though; if he is speaking on behalf of the Board (and you have to assume he is), they have little concern about Le Boss staying. Given that they are closer to the man than any journalist, if they are not worried why is everyone else? OK so he wouldn’t tell us if AW was upset but if he was then he himself would not have been so positive about the future, the young players and the potential. He would not want the Club to disintegrate on his departure so would be putting in place a succession plan.
Elsewhere, El Pais entered into the sh*t-stirring by claiming that Darren Dein contacted Barcelona in April about moving Henry in the Summer. Not sure what they hope to gain by this, presumably fed this by someone with an agenda to ‘blemish’ Henry’s departure. To be honest, I cannot see that it matters. The fact is he has gone and we move onto an new phase in the Club; whether he contacted them or not is irrelevant nor is the timing of such contact. All it smacks of is a tawdry little exercise to stain DD by association and innuendo.
Away specifically from Arsenal, for some reason best known to himself, Richard Caborn, our erstwhile and hitherto completely useless Minister For Sport, has taken it upon himself to meet with the Premier League ‘bosses’ because he is worried about the Division becoming a ‘billionaires playground’. Caborn is concerned that the sport is moving away from the masses,
I think we have got to make sure that the grass roots, the communities from which those clubs came indeed are respected
Would it be an inopportune moment to point out to him that he is about fifty years too late. Well before the inception of the Premier League, the top flight Clubs had ceased to be ‘community’ based institutions. They do contribute to the Community in their own ways - school visits, charitable work - but with the increasing globalisation and mobility of their support, very few are even remotely like lynchpins of their localities as they once were, save for the exceptions such as Blackburn who have the highest percentage of locally based supporters in the Division I seem to recall recently.
For a Club such as Arsenal, the inhabitants of the local area are increasinly unimportant unless the Club need them on their side. If everyone who lived in Islington decided not to support the Club, would it hurt them? No, with transport links, I suspect the percentage of fans who support the Club is small. That is not to say, they are unimportant but they are nowhere near the lifeblood of the Club that they would have been a century ago.
But it is his concern about the Division becoming a ‘billionaires’ playground that irks. The populist phraseology shows how out of touch with the reality that Caborn is. There is only one owner who can afford to treat his Club as a toy and that is Abramovich. Every other one has to make the Club commercially viable in order to get a Return on their Investment. Caborn seems to be trying to shut the stable door long after the horse bolted. His intention to appear to be actively concerned about football is misplaced. The Premiership Clubs are more than capable of looking after themselves. They have their own rules for Directors and Owners being ‘fit and proper’ persons to own the Club, i.e. they have to be financially able to support the Investment. Irrespective of how they achieve this and whether or not you agree with their methodology, the days of Spencer Trethewy are long gone; there is not a headlong rush down the Leeds route again. So why the meeting? It surely could not be something to do with the fact that he is out to impress his new Boss?
’til Tomorrow.
