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Writer: Arsenal Site Staff 
Date:Thursday October 6 2011
Time: 4:00PM
UK time is: 15:10:24
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Arsenal Do Not Need Europe
Chief Executive Ivan Gazidis has said that Arsenal do not need to qualify for the Champions League in order to be competitive next season.
With a less than perfect start to the season, Gazidis has assured fans that the clubs' business model does not depend on finishing in the top 4 or the money generated from the Champions League competition.
Speaking at the Leaders in Football Conference at Stamford Bridge, he said.
'We would rather qualify for the Champions League, but we have a really stable model that can cope. And we could not only cope, we could do well and compete.'
Gazidis added that he doesn't believe any club would be foolish enough to have the business model dependent on a Top 4 finish and he insists the financial side of the club is in good hands and will be able to cope with whatever the economy or the climate throws at it. He also dismissed speculation that the club has a salary cap.
'We don't have a salary ceiling, I don't know where that story comes from. We have a very sophisticated business model that looks at what we need to do to compete today, next year and five years from now. I am comfortable we will be able to be competitive in whatever environment is going to be created.'
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Your Comments
We could really live without this talk right now. I know that some fans would sooner plunge us into debt to ensure trophies of CL football, but there are just as many fans who appreciate our solid foundations for the future of the club .... we don't want to hear about how financially sound we would be with CL football (we've heard it so often we all know it) we want to hear how the club is working damned hard to win our next football match. How we're looking to pool every available resource into fixing this mess. If we concentrate on talking about how we'll be ok with CL football, that allows the players to drop their guard. They should know their very Arsenal careers depend on qualifying, that might kick some life into them.
Rocky7
These sort of things are the norm when you're playing as badly as us, he'll drip feed us this if we continue to play terribly as we are.
shewore
Rough estimation with numbers, to not qualify for Europe at all would cost us around £35-40m on gate receipts and TV money. That'd most likely be covered in the main by our TPA, which has roughly £50m in it. On the surface, we'd be alright. But it'd leave us almost no money for new players (in fairness, we'd likely end up selling a lot of players that'd want to leave anyway). But the biggest consequence would be that we will shortly renegotiate sponsorship deals and how lucrative those deals are will depend entirely on on pithc success. Without Europe, we're unlikely to be able to expand our commercial income, we'd lose gate and TV money. That's all 3 of the main strands of income virtually decpitated. I mean, it wouldn't be financial meltdown a la Leeds. But it would seriously damage our chances of getting back to being competitive and getting into the CL.
Little Dutch
Not to mention it would hurt our ability to sign top class players.
jaelle
Ill informed comment by the CEO there, unless there was some perspective we are not aware of. This club needs a lot less talk, at this time.
Naijagunner
Really Rocky? What did you expect IG to say? I'm not going to answer that question, instead I will go onto my talking point like a slimy politician. 'We are working very hard on and off the pitch, thank you next question". And also to whoever wrote this article I don't think IG said that "Arsenal didn't need Europe". Especially when our manager calls CL qualification the second best trophy in the country, twisting the CEO's words is what a slimy politician would do.
gronedrone
Shut up and get yer arses back to training.. Idiots.
Sajit
Er "competing"? Surely being in the CL means competing, not being in it is regarded as a complete and utter failure. Gazidis has done absolutely nothing to endear himself to the fans except make excuses and talk double. He has to be the least popular CEO we've had in 30 odd years. Any further back than that and I was thinking only of where the next biscuit was coming from!! I just wish they'd STFU about how failure is acceptable, whicyh is what he is saying. I want someone to say we will not tolerate less than this, we will spend the money we have to ensure this and do everything in our power to make sure qe qualify. Not "it doesn't matter if we don't".
LondonGooner
Can I please add some context to this discussion (which seems to be mostly people saying 'shut up, this doesn't help!'); as the article explains, Ivan Gazidis was 'Speaking at the Leaders in Football Conference', and this is PART of what he said. He also explained that 'if the club were to fail to qualify for the champions league, it would not go bust. We don't base our football club solely on competing in that competition. Anyone who does isn't running their club properly'. When a man is asked a question and answers it fully and honestly, I think that's to his credit; it's a bit unfair to pick a couple of lines out of a whole day's conference and then criticise the man for answering a question.
damiano_tommassi
When a man who is CEO of a football club is asked a question, in the current climate, and gives a rather defeatist, uninspiring answer he should be slapped. We do not need ot hear ***t like that currently, we want tub thumping encouragement about how they will do their best to not allow this situation to happen, but IF it did then we would sruvive. I mean how ***king difficult is that? You can defend him all you like DT, it doesn't mean you're right or his comments are suitable/sensible with the current mood around the club. Even a complete imbecile could sens ethat.
LondonGooner
I concur with Damiano here. This was a full day Q & A session with the media. A conference about running a football club. None of what he has said is controversial or untrue. He was asked a question, he gave the correct answer. It's not a case of saying failure is acceptable, only saying it is accounted for. If a businessman charged with running the business is asked a business question, how else is he to respond other than in business terms? The tubthumping and rallying has to come from coaches, the players and the manager. Gazidis' job is to run the football club and keep it solvent. Personally, I'd be more *****ed off if he started making in depth analyses of the players.
Little Dutch
His comments were out of touch with teh clubs fansbase current mood an dthe teams travails on the pitch. not a good answer at a bad time. Should of passed it over if he couldn't say anything less predictable or depressing. Conference or not, he's an Arsenal employee not a "conference" employee and our club and it's fans should be put above everything else, his comments were poorly timed and thought out.
LondonGooner
So when asked that direct question, he should have said, "no answer." What do you think the media would have made of that? It'd have created a massive storm. To not have answered in the way he did would have been very ill thought out. I don't really understand how it's depressing that the club is run in such a way that it won't go bust without European qualification. I would have thought quite the opposite was true, but maybe I'm also out of touch with the current fanbase.
Little Dutch
Fact is, from a PR perspective at the moment, the club can't win. Everything is out of touch with the mood of the fanbase because the mood of the fanbase is to absolutely pillory absolutely everything at every available opportunity. If the club doesn't answer this question, there would be a huge hearsay campaign about the state of our finances from the media, the fans would panic and start hitting out again. If the club just sees this prevailing mood of hysteria and decides to say nothing at all about anything, they are then accused of not communicating and of hiding something and being disrespectful to the fans. Only at Arsenal at the moment would the CEO saying we have virtually no chance of "doing a Leeds" be greeted with such grief. Most fans would either treat the statement with indifference, or they might applaud it. Only in the mind of the current Arsenal fan is this tiresome hysteria and negativity so pervasive.
Little Dutch
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