Arsenal are twice as rich and pay 40% MORE than Spurs in wages – WTF?

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As Arsenal prepare to face their great rivals Tottenham on Sunday there are certain questions that have arisen in the differences between the way the two clubs are run, especially as Spurs are currently ten points ahead of Arsenal and seemingly certain to reach the Champions League next year.

The big difference everyone noticed in the summer was that Spurs REFUSED to sell Luka Modric depite the Croatians obvious wish to leave, while Arsenal let Cesc Fabregas leave on the cheap to Barcelona.

Secondly, Arsenal are the third-richest club on the planet according to Forbes, but what the article didn’t mention is that Tottenham are 11th, with a turnover of around half of Arsenals ($179m against $336m)

Thirdly it was revealed last night that Arsenal pay out 40% more in wages than Tottenham, but it is obvious who has the better players right now. The Arsenal Supporters Trust spokesman Tim Payton said last night about Arsenal’s failure to win a trophy for the seventh successive season. He said: “But questions need to be asked. We had a summer profit of £50m on player trading, lots of money in the bank and figure out whether there was money to invest and where we might be going.

“Last year, there was a collapse on the four trophies then straight after there was a 6.5 per cent rise on top of the most expensive tickets in world football.

“A worry for next year for the fans is that next year they will be paying for Thursday night football rather than the Champions League they’ve been used to.

“We spend so much on wages. This year we’re going to spend 40 per cent more than Spurs, it’s £130m wage bill. Are we overpaying a lot of players that we then can’t move on.

“Our business model has fallen behind. Our sponsorship is not up for renewal until 2014. We can’t compete for the very best players.”

How come, with all the massive financial advantages that Arsenal have, Tottenham are ten points above us in the League?

23 thoughts on “Arsenal are twice as rich and pay 40% MORE than Spurs in wages – WTF?

  1. For all arsene wenger’s has been shouting about profits, it sure looks like he’s not smart with the club’s money actually. Giving contracts to stupid 3rd rate players are NOT smart. Selling world class fabregas so so cheap after years of fighting to keep him is NOT smart – (are we fooled by this lovey dovey father-son relationship, as more important than the club’s interest?). And keeping or extending useless players’ contracts are stupid, as well as buying cheap over-the-hill players. A case of being penny-wise but pound-foolish.

  2. Mr Wenger is simply a tribalist. Unfortunately for him, he could not even form “Le French” national team at the Emirate. Check out for the performances of these players. RVP, Song, Arteta, Mertasecker, Chamberlain. Have u 4gotten dat Le Prof doesn’t have any proven English player in his team b4 a law was promugated? On the part of the board, they are simply penny wise and pound foolish. I rest my case.

    1. You said Arsène Wenger is a tribalist. I doubt if you really understand what that means. Can you list 15 world class British (English, Wales, Scottish, Irish, Other migrants that are now British) players that are playing outside the premier league. See we have more rubbish players here. Today give credit to whom it is due. It may not be working for us at the moment but what Arsène Wenger did has made the premier league to become very competitive with more foreign players. The league is exciting.

      Still on tribal stuff can you list any of the top 7 clubs in the league that is owned by a Briton? Also it does not matter if Spurs is on top for the first time, even when we won the leagues we did not spend like Man U, Newcastle, Liverpool, Chelsea and yet we won so my point is we allow emotions to run us dry and we forget the actual facts about this league. Money has never won the league and it is too early to think Spurs will finish in third or Man City first. The game is still on.

  3. sell almunia, chamakh, squillaci, diaby, bendtner, Djourou, Arshavin …They dont perfrom well at all and are wasting the money…..sell them and bring in some good decent players……then the future will be bright for arsenal..

    1. Djourou just signed a new contract so Arsene thinks he has a future at Arsenal. I can’t see why. Add Denilson, Mannone to that list plus it will be decision time on Henri Landsbury, Sanchez Watt and Craig Eastmond who turned 21 this year and would need to be registered next year.

  4. Got rid of a lot of players at the end of last season but they were the wrong players. How handy would have Clicky, Denilson and Eboue been after all the injuries?

  5. I’m sure when Arsene finally speaks, a massive can of worms will be opened. I’m just waiting for him to retire when he wishes and then kick the top brass in order.

  6. The strategy of offering all promising 18-year-olds professional contracts with huge strings attached has definitely backfired, as most of those players have not contributed anything ofvalue to Arsenal. I don’t know whether it’s still in place – if it is, then the management need to think of cutting down on that.
    I don’t agree that Cesc was sold on the cheap. Cesc was definitely sold too late. The problem was that he refused to move anywhere other than Barca, and Barca have their own financial issues. This meant that we might not have been able to extricate them of the kind of funds that would ever satisfy us. But the other problem was that Cesc was actually not in full shape for two seasons prior to the sale. Can you demand 100m for a player who’s clearly out of his depth for so long? There were also injuries to reckon with. In other words, Cesc’s value has steadily decreased for a year or two prior to the sale, and in the circumstances, the club could only apply force to keep him or allow him to go.

  7. Denilson? Handy? He is the worst player of being the first 11 of all time. Right now nobody wanna buy him, and no Brazilian coach wanna take him.

  8. The wages bill has been steadily rising despite the departures of a number of star players, but that is not only a result of the mismatched contracts, but also of contract renewals with players who are actually quite good for Arsenal. Yet, it’s a shame Arsenal’s wage bill is 3rd in the league while we’re struggling to get to 4th in the table, and that is something the management need to explain. It’s possible that the rising ticket prices have something to do with the management panicking that the Financial Fair Play will backfire on the club in the event it doesn’t qualify for the CL. That’s a revolution in the making. I really hope Arsenal will make it to the end of the season safely…

  9. That is the great failing of Arsenal FC over the last 10 years. Paying average players star player wages and being stuck with them. Who negotiates the contracts ? in my understanding it’s Gazidis, not Wenger. It’s a fallacy that the club is run financially responsibly. Where next when the players that we need to get rid of are being paid wages that no other team in the world would pay them ? You cannot improve a team from this situation unless you wait for the contracts to expire but then I read about Djourou getting a new contract and wonder why. I believe in Wenger but he’s a part of all this and if he doesn’t distance himself from these mistakes they will drag him down and out. On the other hand if he does distance himself and blame the board then the board will probably sack him anyway. Rock and a hard place.

  10. I wish to start with a comment on Flavour’s comment that yo cant buy the league, it is not true. You canbuy the EPL. Chelsea did, Mancity is about to, the issue is whether it is sustainable. Again, maybe not ascan be seen with Chelsea. When you rely completely on buying finished products because you have money, it has its challenges as we can see with Chelsea. However, with Arsenal, a blend i required and that is not happning. When you loose top players, you must replce them with at least players near the lost quality especially if you trained and developed the lost quaality fo many years otherwse you will be stucked like Arsena is now. The manager’s planing, foresight and beliefs are outdated and he must update himself or else….

  11. Djourou having a new contract?what a joke,he cant play football,wenger is old and sinyle if he thinks this guy can play,he would not get into enny prem side,wenger inherited a fine team when he came to arsenal,7 yrs of failing to win a single thing tells it all,and 4th spot is not like winning a trophy,we are paying huge wages to deadwood,he is not a good manager hes well past it,stuborn and he does not care about the fans just profit,we are a mid table team,we will loose our next 2 games cos the players we have are not good enough,all wengers fault.

  12. wage cap and age limit need to be revisited. I suppose that we need 4-6 experienced players to mixed them with youth/energy.

    U don’t even get top players for cheap and we therefore can’t ignore the environment we are operating in. Of course, there are teams who pay inflated prices and salaries and it is why we need to device a strategy to survive.

    Even though we might not be able to pay the highest salaries we at least need to have exceptions by which we pay much reasonable salaries to some players of proven quality based on the service they delivered to the team. Equally we need to consider paying similar salaries to incoming top range players.

    It is experience and wining mentality that counts and not neccesarily the age as far as the age limit is concerned and I believe that the age limit the team applies is detrimental for our own good.

    Spurs and Man U examples are classical examples in case as far as the salaries paid for quality of critical mass of players and older players value and contributions are respectively.

    We were in the building process and repayments of the debts in the recent pass but have reached a level we are financially sound and need to achieve on the field success. On the field success in turn will attrack star players to the team.

  13. Mr. Wenger has simply refused to learn from his mistakes. over the last six seasons, it is paramount that injuries always wreck havoc on this time around this time of the year, but Le professor has refused to sign an accomplished professional over the winter market, giving silly excuses about the fact that you can find bargain buys in this window. Also, another aspect that pricks my mind is that why all the average players in the team, you sell two of the best midfielders in the world and replace them with a player that plays for a mid table team like Everton, Arsenal have all the money, but they allow their fans to suffer these much, it is high time Mr. Wenger revisits his foolish philosophy cos come Sunday Spurs will teach him that u keep your good players and also add good ones. The man has lost touch with the present, imagine i can even watch their matches anymore because you sense what is coming, it is really pathetic, these days you build your team on a model that can stand Barcelona, Manchester United and say Real Madrid any day then you can say you have a team. But Arsenal vs Man U. over the years Wenger always knows he will loose this matches, and will come out to say, “they were better than us in all department of the game”, who stops him from getting good players, the fans should force him out please, his time is up.

  14. We hv 18 players on loan. On paper, they are part of the wage bill. In reality, otherubs are paying these wages.

    1. It might surprise you that Spurs actually have players on loan to other clubs as well, so as much as deducting the 18 players from Arsenal’s wage spend you would have to do the same for the 19 players Spurs have out on loan.

  15. Spurs are always willing to pay transfer fees but they cannot offer wages. Conversely, we offer high wages but refuse to pay high transfer fees. In reality, wages cost more than transfer fees in the long run which is why Totts spend more on fees than salary and also the reason they go through so many players. They run basically a trial and error system where they are willing to go and buy a player for a position because the outgoining player they are replacing is not on a high wage so selling them to other clubs is easier because they have not been spoiled with high salaries like Arsenal’s underperformers have been. This is the economic problem with Arsene’s wage structure and why we can only ever sell up, never down, so our wage bill is bloated with crap players earning high wages and bigger clubs don’t want those crap players and smaller cluibs can’t afford them so we’re stuck with them.

  16. It is time AW started concentrtating on defence and nothing else. If you don’t concede you get a point. Bring in TA as No 2 and also Martin Keown if they are available. What about SB.

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