I love walking in the rain. I love the solitude, I can walk for miles and never see another soul even in a pretty large city. I love the way that the rain collects on the brim of my hat and drips off in big silver lumps. I love the way the rain evaporates off the trees in dreamy clouds. And my absolute favorite thing about walking in the rain is coming home soaked and changing into warm, dry clothes.
Those contrasts are what I love most about life. One minute you’re riding high because your club just won the FA Cup, and the next minute you’re reading the most hilariously obvious propaganda from your club about how the owner is putting money in and yet the club still needs to make cuts to 55 staff – in order to pay for new players.
By now you’re aware that Arsenal have announced that they are laying off 55 staff. And before I say anything else I want to express my heartfelt sympathy to all the staff at Arsenal, those who are being made “redundant” and those who have to wait until Friday to find out. This is a hell of a time to look for work.
I personally know many small businesses who are doing everything they can – including the owners dipping into their own pockets – to shelter as many employees as possible while we all try to weather the storm. That’s the bottom line here, in case you haven’t figured this out yet: human beings absolutely need each other to survive. You can hoard all the Toilet Paper you want, but if we don’t all work together and support each other, you’ll be up shit’s creek without a roll in just a few weeks, my friends.
And that’s part of the great big lie that we’ve all been told, the giant scam we’ve had drilled into us since the 80s. That the only thing that matters is business and that we need to give everything away to billionaires because “trickle-down” economics works: big daddy will take care of you (when he feels like it.)
Thanks to tax cuts, tax dodges, deregulation, globalization, and paying off politicians the wealth gap in this country has become untenable. In 1990 there were 66 billionaires in the USA with a total wealth of $240bn, in 2020 there are 614 billionaires with a total wealth of $3 trillion. That’s a percent increase of 1,130%. Meanwhile the median household wealth has increased just 6% in that same time. Trickle down? It’s more like the wealthy are using a shop vac to suck up as much of the world’s money as they possibly can.
And let’s take Enos Kroenke as an example. You would think that at some point, when a guy has $8bn, when his wealth grew more than $400m since the Coronavirus outbreak due to government bailouts (paid for with tax money), and he can afford to give $1m to Donald Trump’s inauguration fund, you would imagine that the money would start trickling down to the poor people. That he would feel some sort of “noblesse oblige” to use his largess to at least keep on payroll for another year while the market adjusts and fans return to the stadium.
You would think that a club which just asked it’s players to take a permanent 12.5% pay cut – with the explicit promise that the money would be used to make sure that people at the club kept their jobs – or a club which just hit the Europa League jackpot; or a club which the owner has taken out well over £2m in dividends; or a club which pays huge sums to agents who are unofficially on the club’s payroll; or a club which claims that the owner is putting money in (because he refinanced the stadium debt); or a club which can afford to give a £20m 1 year deal to an ageing center back; or a club which was able to afford a £5m loan fee for an ageing right back (who didn’t play at all) and then signed him on a free a few months later; or a club for whom a lot of these deals all go back to one agent who is paid very well; you would think that a club that did all of those things would be able to afford to keep its promise to the players to use their voluntary reduction in pay to keep staff on board.
But they didn’t and they don’t. Instead they put out one of the most hilariously cynical statements I’ve seen from a corporation in a while.
They started by pretending that Enos has generously put in his own money, he hasn’t. He has used his wealth to work with a bank to refinance the stadium debt to ensure a lower payment. No golden coins left Scrooge McDuck’s vault and no money was put into the club, which I need to point out that he could very easily do because FFP has been relaxed.
And then the coup de grace: absurdly linking $3m in salary savings of low-level employees to the signing of new players. And as if the move weren’t cynical enough? The next day announcing (through the media) that Aubameyang and Willian are signing for the club this week.
The club are entitled to reorganize and we all know that some things at the club weren’t great. But we are also entitled to wonder why the head of recruitment is being cut free? This is the guy who has literally made millions for this club through his work in the transfer market, most recently identifying young gems like Saliba and Martinelli.
Or cutting loose two physios who helped Kieran Tierney through his most recent rehab. Both of whom the young player thanked for their service publicly on twitter.
Again, reorganizations make sense and from time-to-time a business has to change things up but the way this is being done, while pretending that it’s about player recruitment is galling. Especially since the recruitment that we seem to be doing is just through one man.
My guess is that they assume that this will blow over. We are so saturated with propaganda right now from all walks of life that it’s difficult to stay mad at any corporation for too long. Does anyone even remember the airline that everyone was boycotting last year? Or how about those Goya products? And ultimately, some folks will wonder if Enos Kroenke is even that terrible? Like, I mean, beyond how terrible all billionaires are. Is he in the top 10 baddies? Or is he just the most milquetoast of all the rich guys that could own the club?
I’ve heard from several sources that the Arsenal players are not happy. They were the only club in the league to agree to a permanent cut and were promised that no one would lose jobs. Not only that but Arteta reached out to a lot of players personally and from what I’ve read made this about team unity. How does he look now? And how does this all play out in recruitment? Are players and agents that jaded that they don’t care? Or will they have 2nd thoughts about coming to a club which cajoles players into pay cuts?
Maybe you think that “this is just business”? I agree. This is cold, calculating, business, with absolutely no regard for their fellow humans. It’s also not a surprise that a multinational corporation treats its employees like expendables. Amazon does the same all while Jeff Bezos made $70bn during the pandemic.
But if this is just business then why are you a fan of this business? What kind of person is a fan of a multinational corporation? “Oh I’m a GE man, myself” he said and grinned with pride as he slipped on his “GE Washers are the best” tee shirt. A shirt he wore every Wednesday when the GE Washers took on the Whirlpool Washers in the Toilet Bowl. “GE Washers till I die!” he said, and rolled up his sleeve to reveal a tattoo of the old GE logo. “I got this bad boy back in the 80s, when we used to win all the awards: best dryer, 1983-86; best fridge 1986; and best washer in 1991!”
And if this is a business why aren’t you taking your business elsewhere? The rational position would be to maximize pleasure by following the best, most exciting, team each season. Don’t get bogged down following a club that’s in 10th place, where the owner doesn’t care to invest in the team, find an alternative team to follow for a while.
That’s the real danger here and what I think Enos profoundly misunderstands: if a sports team is treated like just another business the fans will eventually choose businesses that they prefer, ones that consistently make a good product or offer something exciting.
Go GE Washers.
Are you sure the players were asked to take a permanent pay cut ? Was there an agreement that the money would be returned if they got into the EL?
Read where the 12.5% amount– was reduced to 7.5%– thanks to the FA Cup/EL outcome.
A very eloquent and level-headed summary of how many of us Gooners are feeling right now. Saturday’s euphoria didn’t even last until the middle of the week, did it? Embarrassed, saddened and hugely disappointed by the behaviour of my beloved club.
My thoughts exactly. Totally gutted, and not the way I want my Arsenal to run things in the middle of a pandemic.
It sucks but it’s life for the sports world in a pandemic. NBC Boston also just let go like 22 employees. I definitely think they wanted to sandwich this bit of unpleasantness between the FA cup win and the Auba-William announcements and truthfully they probably correctly figure that we will have moved on from this by next week. This is clearly a business and a business that knows brand loyalty is not fickle. The Arsenal brand will continue to to grow and that is their one major aim.
I think it’s also worth pointing out the charitable activities the club provided during the early months of the pandemic.
This was April– but I’d not heard otherwise.
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is continuing to pay the salaries of all Mavs employees throughout the duration of the pandemic. So, even if the position seemed expendable or replaceable? Cuban decided to take the humane course straight away. Removing his workforce’s secondary economic stresses out of the pandemic equation.
I think we have to be clear about who we are blaming for this. I tend to be more understanding of the Raul/Vinay brain trust because they are operating within the constraints they are handed. I think it’s clear that they wouldn’t have made this decision (if they even made it themselves!) if the Kroenke’s decided to do what Cuban did. But it’s also worth noting how different the NBA and the PL are. Cuban’s team is a franchise, not a stand alone company, and is not going to lose millions in revenue depending on whether they place 4th or 7th or 8th in the table.
Arsenal are somewhat unique in that they are a “mega club” akin to Chelsea, United and City, and expected to compete at that level, but that their revenue depends so much more on match day income than those clubs. Nor does our owner have the same philosophy in terms of pouring cash into the club as needed as the owners of Chelsea, City and Liverpool. So if we are looking for someone to blame, someone who could’ve stepped in and prevented these layoffs with an injection of cash, that would be our majority shareholder and his company.
To me, Arsenal the football club and the Kroenkes are not synonymous. They sit on the board of directors and they ultimately make the biggest decisions with their corporate lawyer cronies, but they are out for themselves first and foremost. My club may be owned by them but its values and philosophy are not defined by their actions. My club’s staff and employees may depend on them but do not have to agree with them. Vinay and Raul may have signed that memo, but they are the fall guys here. They are making those layoffs either because they were directly instructed to or because they crunched the numbers and felt they have no other choice to keep Arsenal competitive in the current environment. At that point, the Kroenkes could’ve stepped in and said no, we will support those employees. But I don’t think that’s a bridge they want to cross. Putting their own money into this club would, in their mind perhaps, become a slippery slope. So they’d rather maintain the current “self sustaining” model even at the cost of 55 perfectly good employees, even though the model is clearly not sustaining itself anymore given the necessity of these cuts.
I actually think this is a moment where a sustained fan response on social media and elsewhere might actually force their hand. If there is enough boycotting, picketing and proverbial rotten tomatoes thrown their way, they might decide to cough up enough dough to help some of these folks keep their jobs. I say we make our voices heard on this. This is NOT what our club is about. Victoria Concordia Crescit.
A very thoughtful piece Doc and the last paragraph particularly. I have written to the club twice previously regarding my concerns (once regarding a charity I represent, the other to politely request they alleviate Wenger’s position as lightening rod for fan frustration on certain matters). And to be fair I received polite if non-committal replies. It’s something I’d encourage more fans to do. It only costs a postage stamp. I read Arseblog’s post today and frankly it’s misguided as it’s just preaching to the choir. IMO if you have a representative voice (and in the case of Andrew actually make a living indirectly from AFC and fans) I’d rather energies were focussed either to mobilise fan action or at least approach the club to represent their views. And hey maybe nothing comes from it but if you don’t try…
Possibly. Or it could simply be the perspective taken at another Kroenke-family institution: Walmart. Employees are expendable and replaceable.
Reports are– the amount of £3M would cover annual salaries.
Also read that in 20 years time the number of Arsenal employees have increased from around 100 at turn of the century– to over 500 today. Perhaps timing of the firings is the offense? Guilty-as-charged from the public’s perspective. End of a belated season. First Summer for a new manager. Five weeks until the new season kicks off. When would the timing be appropriate?
Fans returning to the Emirates anytime soon is– a hope. This novel coronavirus cannot be wished away. The matchday income will be unavailable to the club as long as the virus demands. Pandemics of this variety usually work in waves. Fall is when one of the models I’ve seen predicts another, stronger, more virulent breakout could occur. COVID-19 will last another year– maybe more. Might become a seasonal or year-round strain.
So then. The firings– forethought or malice?
Fucking yes, Tim. 👏
Although I’m a Xerox man myself.
Excellent piece.
Arsenal were once respected in England for their traditions and unusually high standards of behaviour compared to other clubs. It is no surprise that such standards as survived into the 21st century were shredded when the club was sold by its English patrician custodians to a rapacious American businessman with a track record showing a lack of respect for the little guy.
This is a truly disturbing development.
My hope is that Auba has enough of a moral backbone to say, “on second thought, no thanks, I’d like to move on.” Do I want Auba to stay? Absolutely, but….. I don’t know, it’s hard to be excited about any transfer or retention of a great player when it’s out in the context of our bloodsucking owner trying to pull one over on the players, the coaching staff and the fans.
Sad thing is, I just purchased a nice new Arsenal warmup jacket and I’m pretty sure my wife and kids got me a Tierney jersey for my birthday tomorrow. I don’t know if I can wear either of those things with this in mind.
Great post Tim. Thanks for everything you do for us. It’s hard to imagine that any man who is worth several billion dollars is willing to lay off 55 employees who will have to struggle. It’s not right. My thoughts and prayers for those families
Unfortunately whether you are on the right or the left, end of the day, whatever economic or political system you are in, the guys on top will just milk the guys at the bottom.
Our dear Arsenal owner is a fine example of this tradition.
ENOS is basically Epsom Salt
Of course see the manipulation by Raul to get dissenting voices out so he and pal KJ can dip in the tub with greedy abandon.
But the thing is so crass and cruel any Owner with an iota of humanity should have intervened. Guess Kroenke is just an avaricious c—-p.
Maybe I am one of the biased ones against the current management of the club, but I don’t think that this move has been forced down by the Kroenkes down to the club. This is Don Raul consolidating his power. There has been scouts leaving recently (Steve Morrow and few others), there was this StatsDNA guy also leaving, so the only difference that I see now is that there is a very convenient excuse around.
I don’t believe that Stan is going through the headcount list, thinking “I can do without Head of International Scouting”, it has been the Head of Football who has deliberately chosen the names to be fired..
This has nothing to do with money, this is a clean-up. This is what dictator-type politicians do when they come to power — kill the opposition and concentrate the decision-making in their own hands. And sometimes people are swallowing and believe it is for better, if the dictator is a sympathetic type or there is some external threat to bond the nation. But it is never good in the long run.
Now we have our Arteta which gives us hopes and believes, but the honeymoon will end, and everybody will have to face the inevitable clash between the uncompromising Arteta style and Don Raul’s egocentric agenda.
Another strange thing is the “it is all business” phrase. Being only business is not an excuse to make strategically wrong decisions. Exactly from business perspective, the company (in this case the Arsenal Football Club) have to take specific care of the “Research and Development” (the scouting and youth academy), the brand name and position on the market. Failing to do so is a unforgivable oversight from the owners. And even if we can “excuse” Don Raul for just being a bad manager, the people above him have to be either extremely dumb or shortsighted not to see what damage is the person they have hired to manage their company doing to their assets.
I’m fatigued. If the joy produced through watching Arsenal were quantifiable what would it look like? Have at it (X J – expected joy?) Anyhow, I’m following more local teams now for that joy.
I’m not giving the Kranks any more of my money at this point. Makes me feel a bit like a Blackpool supporter, I suppose.
It’s just a game. I’ll find that joy where it is.
That my Arsenal is making these poor folk redundant now when we are owned by a billionaire and aren’t exactly broke makes the club feel a little less like the Arsenal I chose to follow. Tim’s right. Why should I support a club that does this?
I’ve been going to Arsenal games since 1960. In that time, I’m sure Arsenal Football Club has pulled a few dodgy strokes, but overall there was always an “Arsenal way” of doing things. The directors were mainly old money family members, who were very much “Arsenal people”. The Hill-Woods, the Bracewell-Smiths. (This was when double-barrelled names weren’t in the least bit fashionable.) Ownership was passed down from father to son. Not always successful, but they had a fairly dignified, almost aristocratic way of conducting themselves. Of course times change, but that feeling has always hung around the club, which is to its credit. Other clubs might not have liked us, but they still viewed us as being “special”, even if they didn’t like to admit it. What we are seeing now doesn’t belong to that, in any shape or form. Whatever “class” we might have had, has been completely thrown under the bus. We’re being run by “money men”, who might as well be selling cans of beans. No feeling for our history, even less for our “community”, as has just been recently demonstrated. They know the price of everything, but the value of nothing.
That first sentence, though, Tim. I just imagine you walking moodily while Milli Vanilli plays in the background. Beautiful.
I think if we are critical of, or generally antagonistic towards, capitalist / business models, then we’ll always be conflicted about seriously following a professional sporting club, and I can only imagine this ambivalence is exacerbated when the club in question is a successful Premier League club like Arsenal.
Because we enjoy waxing lyrical about the “beautiful game,” the way that “sport brings the world together,” the “magic” of certain sporting moments and people, etc., etc., I used to think football operated in a moral universe, and that, within that universe, Arsenal did things the “right way.” That was always a bit of a delusion, and it led to all kinds of reactions that had as their common denominator an appeal to poetic justice, it’s occurrence or its lack.
I sometimes wonder the price of losing a sense of transcendence, whether that’s about football or any other aspect of life, and it’s difficult for me, sometimes, not to find in the anger of many supporters the full-blown paradox of a seemingly committed Marxism railing against the lack of transcendent values in the world. The willingness to make exceptions for some and not others, for some attitudes and not others, all the while suspicious of a pervasive, universal, inescapable bottom line.
Great comment
Your power with words is 2nd only to my power to consume cold beer in the summer. Top post.
Wenger, ever the Romantic , responding to recent episodes of racial unrest (albeit not commercialization), prises a kernel of truth from the sport that helps me keep following it, at least generally:
“Football is based on merit only – not who you are, where you come from and how you look. That’s the a good way to teach the world how we should behave.”
Should I pick a different club? Would another be different? Should I divorce myself of tribalism and follow the sport from a neutral distance? Do I wish I were a kid again to recapture a degree of naivete and innocence about the big, bad world?
Tim, I think your next post should be about sandwiches.
1Nil,
While I have you here, can you answer a music-related question for me? What are some guitar-driven or guitar-centric bands / musicians alive and well these days, particularly ones that might attract a teenager?
My 14-year-old wants to learn guitar, and I suspect he’s sort of looking at me to teach him some songs, but my repertoire is hopelessly stuck in the 90’s, and I grew up learning to play guitar in the age of the rock guitar hero, which is over in many respects. I mean, I idolized and learned to play riffs and songs by guitarists of the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. I can’t imagine he’ll find much relevance there, but maybe he will.
Any thoughts appreciated! (And I’ll put this question out to anyone here who enjoys music, too!)
I would suggest you look for a Japanese band called Casiopea. You might be surprised at what you find if you did jazz fusion.
Great question:
1) Check out the Lovell sisters, Meagan and Rebecca aka Larkin Poe (named after an ancestor of theirs). They play roots music but they are lovely young women with old souls and friends of mine:
http://www.larkinpoe.com
2) Greta Van Fleet, a trio of young brothers who play heavy Zeppelin influenced rock.
3) Jose Rios
4) The Big Moon and
5) Anjelica Garcia
Cheers!
Thanks so much!
Eddie Izzard reckons the best way to teach kids music is to ask them what music or songs they’d LIKE to play and then help them to play that.
That’s also a good call.
How a man as rich as Kroenke can be so heartless is beyond me. His wealth as given by google is $8.3bn. The $3mn odd per year that he would save equates to just 0.036% of his wealth. I don’t mean to gloat, but I’ll say this just to provide a comparison given this comment is being made anonymously.
I’m just an average earning employee in the service sector, but I spend between 5% to 10% of my income every month giving to charities and family and friends in need. This is in addition to the 2.5%-3.0% (Sometimes much more) of my liquid wealth (ie cash saving, jewellery , investments etc) that I donate every year. If someone asked me to donate 0.036% to save someone’s employment in these difficult times, I would do it in the blink of an eye.
I simply doesn’t understand how these billionaires could be so heartless !
Ashamed of being an Arsenal fan today.
Shame on you Kroenke!
Heartless? What’s love got to do with it? 🙂
The rich got rich precisely by being ruthless.
Kroenke does not love the club like you and I do.
I just made a blogpost about this with a Scrooge McDuck reference myself (I guess good minds think a like). I’m thoroughly appalled and all my happiness from the FA Cup is simply down the drain. Hope the players can talk some sense to the owners, but given how things are, that’s highly unlikely.
https://naikanomtom.wordpress.com/2020/08/06/mikel-arteta-and-another-arsenal-autopsy-2019-2020/
No supporter that I know of any team in any sport, follows their club because it’s a professional, for-profit business. They follow the sporting history, the players, the community, the managers, cheering them on to win and lustily booing their opponents and rivals. This is what most of us are about and most of us always will be KSE or not.
the scouts find martinelli.. arsenal sell martinelli.. was there a profit after paying martinelli abd the scouts wages and costs?
then do it for all players found by the scouts.
seems to be poor buisness..
God Tim, but you’re such a good writer! For the first time I feel brave enough to comment! Up till now, I have always held back, partly because the quality of the blog and the comments are always of such a consistently high standard that well, to be honest, it’s a little intimidating! But that’s my hang-up, not anyone else’s fault. Anyway, I hope you all will excuse the rambling. Hopefully, I’ll get better if I keep practising.
The timing of this announcement seems opportunistic, at best. It seems to me like a cynical exercise to hide something else, and I wonder what that is. I’m also profoundly troubled by the Executives’ performance, both past and extrapolating into the future. There are so many things I can’t get my head around. I guess I just don’t think like a billionaire.
Also, I acknowledge that I don’t have access to the inner circle and therefore don’t know what the long term strategy is for the club. However, what it FEELS like to me is that Sanllehi has charmed his way into the ear(s) of the Kroenkes because he speaks the language of business and they (the Kroenkes) don’t really care about football performance, so long as it meets a certain standard – which is to say, that it produces the most efficient profit. By which I mean maximum income for minimum investment, and little or no appetite for risk. That, right there? That is a recipe for mediocrity, and that makes me feel uncomfortable..
There are so many discordant notes in this club at the moment – things said that appear at odds with the actions. Did I hear Raul say we needed to be smarter in the market because we couldn’t compete with others with deeper pockets? So how does rolling up and dismantling the scouting network give us a competitive edge? What is the clever alternative? Until I see evidence to the opposite, it looks like all the football talent identification and recruitment will be controlled by Sanllehi, through his contacts list. He may be brilliant at it and clearly, he has a formidable CV. I don’t know. He hasn’t shown it so far, or it may just be too soon to judge, but it feels a bit like “The Emperor’s New Clothes” to me and that makes me feel uncomfortable too.
And what of Edu? How/where does he add value? Is it going to be more “contacts” and “feel for the game”? That makes me uncomfortable too.
I’ve been involved in countless “reorganisations” and most of the time, you could (sometimes begrudgingly) see the organisational purpose behind them. They’re a natural resetting process. But here, in this case, the message feels… vague. And that makes me feel uncomfortable.
Am I right that some physios are to go too? The coming season is going to exact a heavy toll on the team. Wouldn’t maintaining the facilitating capabilities, that keep the best performers performing, be essential to the ability of the club to deliver top performances? (Oh my God, I said “perform”three times in one sentence!).
We own StatDNA but the guy who started it has left to go work with Arsene. Arteta appears totally on board with the benefits intelligent use of statistics can bring, but I get the impression that the Executive don’t really understand the science. That makes me uncomfortable.
I feel that I’m coming across quite negatively but that isn’t my intention. I’ve loved this club since my first visit in 1975 and I’ve witnessed so much change, so many ups and downs. But there was always a sense that there was a benign guiding philosophy behind it all. I don’t get that feeling now, and guess what? That makes me uncomfortable.
Arteta is one of the jewels in our crown and I would just love him to be given some leeway. In just six months a rookie manager has delivered an FA Cup trophy! That’s incredible. Has that ever been done before? Anyone? And what about the tune he’s managed to get out of a disfunctional team? The rehabilitation of Xhaka? Mustafi? AMN? With the young talent we have, his knowledge, drive and leadership, we could be a massively competitive team for a generation.
This transfer window will be pivotal in a way that few others have been. Only after, will we get an inkling of how all the pieces fit together and how well, what direction we’re headed, and whether it’s good or not. And that means I’ll have to wait and see. And that makes me uncomfortable!
Thanks Tim, you articulate this depressingly and heart-breakingly well. This is next-level darkness. The billionaires, and here, specifically, the Kroenkes, are ripping up the last scraps of our fantasy world right in front of our faces, daring us little people to call them to account for the the magnitude of their crimes — Even the millionaire players are so much closer to the rest of us than these ghoulish billionaires. Of course, it’s been in the post (or the privatized version of such…) for quite a fucking while. Welcome to class warfare, I guess. Fuck the Kroenkes! Up the Arsenal!