English football's first £1 billion match
The Independent|
Dec 02, 2017, 12.08 AM IST
One of Saturday’s match used to be biggest in English football. But as first Arsenal and now Manchester United slip away from the top end of the Premier League, it has become something else. This is the clash of the two biggest brands, the two clubs who have been most successful in marketing their image around the world.
It is the first £1 billion match, that’s one between two teams whose combined revenue for the past season was £1 billion, according to Vysyble.
While Manchester City and Chelsea have had more success this decade — five EPL titles between them — with their big-spending benefactor model, United and Arsenal are different. They are American-owned corporate giants who’ve proven to be brilliant — United are the very best — at capturing a global fanbase and monetising it. But has all that profit come at a cost?
Richard Arnold, United’s managing director, has always said that the club’s mantra is that “the more successful I’m off the pitch, the more successful I’ll be on it”. But the last five seasons have done everything to prove that wrong, as commercial revenue have ballooned, while the team’s fortunes have gone in the opposite direction.
How can that be the case? Clearly United are getting the benefit of that revenue: they’ve spent £89m on Paul Pogba, £75m on Romelu Lukaku and £60m on Angel di Maria in the last few years. But their obsession with “eyeballs” has seen them build a high-profile squad rather than a well-balanced one.
Even more important was the recruitment of high-profile managers Louis van Gaal in 2014 and Jose Mourinho in 2016, rather than a younger more dynamic coach to rebuild the side. It should be no real surprise United appointed Mourinho last year over, say, Mauricio Pochettino. Huge global corporations make conservative hiring decisions, after all. Nowhere is this truer than at Arsenal.
American majority owner Stan Kroenke has not yet had to replace the irreplaceable, as the Glazers had to do in 2013. Instead, he has kept offering Arsene Wenger new contracts even as it became clear on the pitch that his methods were outmoded compared to the new generation of coaches.
The result is that in the volatile top end of the League, Arsenal have been remarkably constant: they had 10 consecutive finishes of either third or fourth before breaking the mould to come second in 2015-16 and fifth the following year. In the Champions League, too, they were knocked out of the last-16 for seven consecutive seasons, the ultimate proof that they had hit their ceiling.
At other big clubs that might have raised serious questions, and it certainly feels very different from the upward thrust of Arsenal under Wenger in the late 1990s. But then the club is different place now, with difference incentives and priorities.
For as long as that money keeps coming in, why rock the boat? That attitude has seen Wenger rewarded with new contracts in 2014 and 2017 even as Arsenal continue to fail to challenge for the title. It is the exact opposite of the approach at Chelsea, where the boat never stops rocking and a new manager comes in every year or two. Since Arsenal last won the Premier League, Chelsea have won it five times.
It is the first £1 billion match, that’s one between two teams whose combined revenue for the past season was £1 billion, according to Vysyble.
While Manchester City and Chelsea have had more success this decade — five EPL titles between them — with their big-spending benefactor model, United and Arsenal are different. They are American-owned corporate giants who’ve proven to be brilliant — United are the very best — at capturing a global fanbase and monetising it. But has all that profit come at a cost?
Richard Arnold, United’s managing director, has always said that the club’s mantra is that “the more successful I’m off the pitch, the more successful I’ll be on it”. But the last five seasons have done everything to prove that wrong, as commercial revenue have ballooned, while the team’s fortunes have gone in the opposite direction.
How can that be the case? Clearly United are getting the benefit of that revenue: they’ve spent £89m on Paul Pogba, £75m on Romelu Lukaku and £60m on Angel di Maria in the last few years. But their obsession with “eyeballs” has seen them build a high-profile squad rather than a well-balanced one.
Even more important was the recruitment of high-profile managers Louis van Gaal in 2014 and Jose Mourinho in 2016, rather than a younger more dynamic coach to rebuild the side. It should be no real surprise United appointed Mourinho last year over, say, Mauricio Pochettino. Huge global corporations make conservative hiring decisions, after all. Nowhere is this truer than at Arsenal.
American majority owner Stan Kroenke has not yet had to replace the irreplaceable, as the Glazers had to do in 2013. Instead, he has kept offering Arsene Wenger new contracts even as it became clear on the pitch that his methods were outmoded compared to the new generation of coaches.
The result is that in the volatile top end of the League, Arsenal have been remarkably constant: they had 10 consecutive finishes of either third or fourth before breaking the mould to come second in 2015-16 and fifth the following year. In the Champions League, too, they were knocked out of the last-16 for seven consecutive seasons, the ultimate proof that they had hit their ceiling.
At other big clubs that might have raised serious questions, and it certainly feels very different from the upward thrust of Arsenal under Wenger in the late 1990s. But then the club is different place now, with difference incentives and priorities.
For as long as that money keeps coming in, why rock the boat? That attitude has seen Wenger rewarded with new contracts in 2014 and 2017 even as Arsenal continue to fail to challenge for the title. It is the exact opposite of the approach at Chelsea, where the boat never stops rocking and a new manager comes in every year or two. Since Arsenal last won the Premier League, Chelsea have won it five times.
