When Arsenal turned their backs on the Marble Halls,
they paved the way for a new, cynical game.

Warm Up // A Vision from 2005

As a lifelong Arsenal fan, I had been living through a golden age in the club's history; multiple cups, an extraordinary manager and a new stadium being built as a symbol of its future ambition and financial growth.

But I couldn’t help feeling something was wrong with what was happening at the club, and with top-flight football in general. It led me to write a post on a Yahoo! Groups page that me and my friends had set up to chat shit about each other’s football teams and arrange nights out. Nothing can prepare you for reading how you wrote 20 years ago, but aside from the terrible grammar, there lay something that now feels somewhat prescient.

The post firmly planted my position as a contrarian Arsenal fan, totally going against the grain of cheering on this huge investment. In my emotionally immature state, I inferred that there was a river of slime (à la Ghostbusters II), under Highbury; starting from a bank and finishing at, what I called, the 'McArsenal Stadium'.

First Half // ‘Greed is good’

I felt that the real reason for building the stadium was nothing more than corporate greed, and for many of the directors of Arsenal, it represented a physical totem of their time at the club. An easier, more ownable way to say 'I built that'. Driven by ego and greed, and squeezing the juice out of the 100+ years of Arsenal history and success to turn it into a corporate entity focused on growth, EBITDA and profits for a chosen few to benefit directly from. A football club should be focused on investing in local young talent, sporting excellence and community. Putting fans first, not pricing them out of the game and the club that they helped make in the first place.

Almost twenty years later, this issue not only became a reality but it’s also spread to multiple clubs, and not just in the Premiership.

A snippet from my post in 2005:

"They want to be known as the futurists who saw a vision of Arsenal. They can forget it; they should be remembered as the men who cut short the era of invincibility at Arsenal. As soon as they saw Wenger's various sides win, win, win, they saw huge dollar signs and a chance to channel Wenger's energies away from football into corporate-sponsored bullshit."

Objectively, you cannot argue that having 60,000 fans at a game each week is going to give you greater revenues than a stadium that tops out at 37,000. It's a completely rational plan to bring in more money; no one can argue that point.

My point was, what were the motivations behind it all, the real motivation? At the time, I was angry at gullible fans who were eating up the PR from Arsenal at the time and just parroting it back. Many of my friends, who were Arsenal fans, were firmly in this position, and I imagine much of my anger was targeted at them and their inability to see the real big picture. Much like the recent Brexit disaster in the UK, controlling large groups of people with simplistic messaging and promises will always beat a more nuanced and complex truth about a situation.

In my job, I'm always asking clients 'What is your objective?', and it provides remarkable clarity. Often, they will speak to an execution (of an advertising campaign) as the objective, but that is a strategic output to get them nearer to their actual objective. Port that that Arsenal, and yes the stadium will bring in more money, fine, but what was the ultimate objective? Why do we need more money? Weren’t we fine before…when we were unbeaten for 49 games in 03/04?

A striking point made in a Wikipedia article on Arsenal that season:

“The move to the Emirates Stadium in 2006 coincided with a transitional phase for the club. Several experienced first-teamers were displaced in favour of youth and the style of football shifted more towards ball retention. Arsenal have since failed to regain the league title.”

— Wikipedia

Half Time // What are you in it for?

We were unbeatable for a whole season and had won trophy after trophy, with Wenger and all the existing infrastructure. My most cynical part of me smelled a rat, and like many deals done today, you wonder about the intention of the parties involved, and two types of ‘investment’ seem to occur, or even a combination of both:

1) The core value of what made something great and, in turn, highly valuable, gets targeted to squeeze every ounce of 'value' from it. This is usually presented as ‘becoming a brand’, ‘reaching our global fans’, or ‘more fans can see the games with a bigger stadium’. Most big football clubs have embraced this lie, and Hollywood loves this one, squeezing the juice out of valuable IP, until everyone, including the fans, gets bored and looks elsewhere for entertainment; see Star Wars and Marvel as recent examples of ‘the thing that made it great in the first place is forgotten, but the shiny things that are easy to recreate keep getting pumped out for cinema tickets/streaming subs’. That is until they stop buying…

2) It’s not just to enrich or reinvest into the original source of value, it’s to benefit something completely unrelated to the value creation. Like the Glazer’s heaping millions of their debt to Manchester United when they bought it, (and seemingly have little care about that club since they took ownership), or the increasing amount of sportswashing, where people/organisations/countries are using sport to improve their tarnished reputations to, typically, Western audiences, in order, of course, to become more popular to make even more money and/or get more powerful.

Second Half // Money Talks

In golf’s case, perhaps the greatest example of this where an entire Tour was created by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, forming LIV, to great controversy in 2022, especially with the perception of some of the leading golfers ‘defecting’ from the PGA Tour to the burgeoning startup. Interestingly in its first year, and after spending over $1 Billion on the set-up of the tour, including the lucrative contracts of the players, the tour brought in ZERO revenue. Not zero profits, zero revenue. I’ve only experienced this kind of wanton spending when playing the ‘god mode cheat’ in Sim City and just relentlessly building without having to worry about covering the costs from taxes.

The Public Investment Fund, has, obviously made inroads into football, both locally in Saudi Arabia, with 75% ownership of Al Hilal, Al Ahli, Al Ittihad and Al Nassr, where Cristiano Ronaldo now plays, and also on foreign turf in the UK with 80% of Newcastle United in the Premiership. Of course, the money will be gratefully received by the fans, especially as they sign bigger players and see trophies, I’ll be more interested to see how the club gets used outside of the Premiership and how the relationship evolves in time.

It’s interesting to see players leave the top flight in established clubs and leagues to extend their careers in Saudi Arabia too. You can’t knock someone for leaving for a huge payday, especially as their career comes to an end. But when they dance around this point and make vague attempts to express playing every game, or a new challenge in the top flight, you have to call bullshit. Jordan Henderson, who left Liverpool after Jurgen Klopp let him know he’ll probably play fewer games in upcoming seasons, decided to jump ship after a cup of tea with his old teammate, Steven Gerrard, who is the manager of Al-Ettifaq, where apparently they never once discussed money, and spoke about ‘the project’ of the club. I think if players were a little more Kenny Powers about this kind of move, the public would at the very least respect their decision.

Henderson was also a known advocate for the LGBTQ+ community, often being the face of campaigns, like the Rainbow Laces campaign:

“That’s where my own position on homophobia in football is rooted. Before I’m a footballer, I’m a parent, a husband, a son, a brother and a friend to the people in my life who matter so much to me. The idea that any of them would feel excluded from playing or attending a football match, simply for being and identifying as who they are, blows my mind.

The idea they’d have to hide from it to be accepted? But that’s exactly how too many members of the LGBT+ community feel. We know this because they tell us. So we should listen, support them and work to make it better.

I mentioned earlier that when asked about why there are no openly gay footballers in the men’s professional game in England I usually say I don’t have an answer to that. The other point I often make – and I hear other players and managers say this also – is the one place where there would be absolutely no issue at all is in the team dressing room and internal team environment. I absolutely stand by this.

The modern-day football environment, from my experience, is open and inclusive. It is welcoming. I’ve always believed in our dressing room you are judged on one very simple measure: your abilities as a player.”

— Jordan Henderson in Liverpool FC's Website

There doesn’t appear to be any quotes from Henderson on Saudi Arabia’s LGBTQ+ policies, where male and female expressions of same-sex sexual activity are illegal within the nation.

Lewis Hamilton has been vocal in his frustration of Formula 1 doings ‘its bit’ for sportwashing, when it held its first Grand Prix in Saudi Arabia in 2021.

“We don’t choose where we’re going, others have chosen for us to be here, so we have to apply the pressure on them to make sure that they are doing right by the people in those places, sparking conversations, creating that uncomfortable discussion that is needed in these places,” he explained.

Do I feel comfortable here? I wouldn’t say that I do.

But it’s not my choice to be here. The sport has taken the choice to be here.”

— Lewis Hamilton, 2021

Why does ‘the sport’ decide to go there?

On 27 July 2023, Henderson signed for Al-Ettifaq for a reported transfer fee of £12 million, his salary is not officially known, I’d be amazed if it was the rumoured £700k a week, which he has denied, but Ronaldo is getting a ridiculous £3.6m a week.

“I wanted something that would excite me”

— Jordan Henderson

Two months later, in September 2023, he played in a 3-1 win away to Abha, and bore witness to an official attendance of just 976 spectators.

Advertising legend, Bill Bernbach, is famously quoted as saying, “It’s not a principle until it costs you money”, in Henderson’s case he’s seemingly dropped all his principles for money. Playing to 1000 people will hardly get the adrenaline pumping, and we await to see how his LGBTQ+ outreach work goes in Saudi Arabia.

I’ve been writing this post for so long, that Henderson has now said he wants to move back. Such is life.

Full Time // Highbury

Coming back to the Marble Halls, or what used to be. You can’t blame me, I grew up going to Highbury with my Dad, all through the 90’s. I remember visiting the actual Marble Halls when we picked out our season tickets, in what would’ve been around the 94/95 season, which was the tail end of the George Graham era. I remember walking past the Herbert Chapman bust where you see Arsene Wenger, below. It certainly hits differently than walking through the Emirates now.

We had seats in the East Stand that was technically above the Marble Halls, in the upper tier not far from the centre. I loved going, and whilst looking back I can’t help feel I took it for granted, I wouldn’t stop from critiquing the sides if I felt they weren’t trying hard enough. It’s one thing I just can’t comprehend in general, but when you’re being paid so much, if it looks like you’re not even trying I’d have a huge issue with it.

The atmosphere was always fantastic, with the Clock End always punching above its weight out-singing the newly improved North Bank, and am sure threw their fair share of punches in post-match tussles with away fans. The East Stand was a little more refined, and at the time was seen more like the ‘library’ compared to the Clock End & North Bank, but from recent experiences, and other continual comments from fans, the Emirates seems to make the East Stand more like the Clock End in comparison.

I’ve seen this at the new Spurs stadium too, where the amazing facilities make it feel like you’re going to see Taylor Swift at Madison Square Garden, but at a game I went to from a director’s box, the whole experience felt so removed from the actual game, I barely engaged with it. Not many other fans seemed to, whether in regular seats or in a box. Lack of match day atmosphere is something that is continually commented on, across teams in the Premiership.

As the tweets above reflect, the typical local/loyal/real fans are no longer the priority to clubs, as batches of tickets are made available for anyone with either the finances or inclination to sign up for various membership levels of the club, or signing up to ballots, which randomises who gets to go.

As I’ve said before, I don’t disagree that having a modern stadium isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s the rationale that was stated publicly that clearly isn’t aligned with the true intentions of the owners. Did they really want to allow more fans to come on match day or to actually allow high net worth individuals to enjoy an ‘experience’ around match day, and leech off the atmosphere that the remaining ‘real fans’ supply to the stadium on match day?

The actual focus of the value within the actual sport that made football so successful has then inevitably built this corporate aspect around it in order to monetise it so ruthlessly that it’s in danger of killing the ‘host body’ of the sport itself.

This flagrant disregard to the fans, and the sport in general, made its most clear expression when the long-rumoured Super League was announced. In 2021, via press release, it was announced that twelve European football clubs had agreed to the creation of a new League, including; Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur, Inter Milan, Juventus, Milan, Atlético Madrid, Barcelona, and Real Madrid. Initially proposed to replace the Champions League, but there were fears it could grow to even take over the domestic leagues.

The ringleaders to this were A22, a company founded by an ex-TV broadcast CEO and two bankers, in addition to the ‘executive leadership’ of Florentino Pérez (president of Real Madrid), Andrea Agnelli (chairman of Juventus), Joel Glazer (co-owner of Manchester United), John W. Henry (owner of Liverpool) and Stan Kroenke (owner of Arsenal).

“Pérez expressed the “hope” that the new competition would “provide higher-quality matches and additional financial resources for the overall football pyramid”, provide “significantly greater economic growth and support for European football via a long-term commitment to uncapped solidarity payments, which will grow in line with league revenues”

— Wikipedia

Once again the same kind of quotes are bandied around when we know it’s just for them and their corporate backers to squeeze even more money out of the game. How can you say with a straight face it will provide higher-quality matches?

It is, and always will be, a highly cynical money-making operation. And as the organised group A22, is run by people with experience in TV rights and packaging content for audiences, along with two financiers, the motivation is clear.

The one positive that came out of this was the speed the English clubs all backtracked once the negative backlash reached a critical point, showing there was at least one small part left in these clubs that was listening to the fans.

Extra Time // What’s the solution?

Money is the issue, and with such a highly successful sport as Football, it will continually attract money and people wanting to profit from the game, financially or politically. In the most extreme cases, regulation around who is/isn’t allowed to buy shares in clubs, and perhaps banning of a controlling/influential percentage of ownership if you’re not based in the same country or even better, city, of the sports team in question, should be explored. It is hugely complex to oversee and police but there are owners that everyone can see have no clue about the sport, are proactively heaping debt on the clubs they own, or have no clear connection to it. Those reasons alone should be key factors in determining the suitability of ownership, or more simply, do they give a shit about football?

Financially, caps need to come in across the board, players wages alone have been a huge driver of this issue, it’s out of hand and it all needs to come down to more realistic levels. There is no need to pay someone more than six figures a week to kick a pig’s pancreas around. There should be a globally stated maximum amount, relative to location, which is updated every year, and then adjusted based on where the teams are in the world. If you look back to the mid to late 1990s when the Premiership was in full flow, that feels like the right level of transfer fees and wages - sustainable for owners and fans alike, and not too much money to distort the brain waves of the footballers.

Highlights

Twenty years ago the cards were on the table, big money was flooding in, billionaires who wanted to diversify their portfolios could buy clubs like I’d pick a sandwich in Pret, and more recently, countries who wanted to PR their way out of the history books have managed to work their way in.

The game already feels like a shell of what it was, the Disneyification, where fans will be more interested in how big the cupholders are on their seat, or where the USB ports are, rather than who’s in the starting lineup or the game's flow.

When core, local fans can’t get tickets to the game, and the people who go aren’t interested in the actual match and are more focused on updating their feed with what they did that weekend.

When players seem indifferent to their or their team’s success, once they are financially secure.

When managers cycle through their jobs before they have a chance to get to know their players, let alone lay meaningful foundations.

When owners have no interest in the game, or knowledge, and are using it to offload debt, diversify, give a family member a job or worse subvert reality to their whim.

What have we let the sport become when a large majority of these roles are not adding any value to it?

What’s genuinely left of the game we grew up watching?

We need to protect sport and the clubs, players and supporters that are the engine of them.
If we squeeze them too hard or fully sell out, there’ll be no juice left. Then what happens?
The ‘money’ leaves and leaves everyone left to pick up the pieces.

As Eric Schmidt says, ‘Revenue solves all known problems’, if we look at LIV Golf, you can see these investors are playing a different game altogether, revenue is not even important to them as they have almost unlimited funds. For this level of investor, it requires a denial of attention from the fans to truly defeat them.

Every sporting association, that is seemingly allowing corruption to walk in, should remain focused on creating sustainable, profitable and sincere platforms for leagues, clubs and players to flourish, otherwise, we are going to kill off these institutions.

As a reminder of the scale of this issue, Saudi Arabia will host the FIFA World Cup in 2034.