Arsenal In The Shit?
Fifa have launched an investigation into whether or not Arsenal have broken regulations which may leave us expelled from the Champions League. It has been stated that we have made secret payments to our feeder club Beveren of £1M.
The Club last night released a statement;
"Arsenal Football Club is aware that BBC Newsnight is carrying a story this evening purporting to describe Arsenal's relationship with Belgian football club, Beveren.
Arsenal does not normally make public its agreements with third parties. However, Arsenal can confirm that it has had a technical relationship with Beveren since 2001. This relationship has a number of benefits to both clubs such as providing a platform to share coaching methods and techniques as well as facilitating the option of players being loaned between the clubs. For example, during the course of the relationship, Arsenal players David Grondin, Liam Chilvers, John Halls and Graham Stack all spent successful loan periods at Beveren as did Emmanuel Eboue, who played in a number of trial matches with Arsenal whilst contracted to Beveren. Such was the latter player's success, Arsenal subsequently signed Eboue on a permanent basis.
In addition, Arsenal confirms that it has never owned, directly or indirectly, any shares in Beveren or had any power whatsoever to influence its management or administration. It did in 2001 provide funds of 1,570,703 Euros by way of loan to a member of the consortium to assist in stabilising the finances of Beveren.
At no time has anyone at Arsenal been contacted by any regulatory or investigatory body with respect to its relationship with Beveren. Arsenal and all its staff have acted properly throughout, in accordance with all applicable rules and regulations, and in the best interests of Beveren, Arsenal and the broader footballing community."
Is this someone making something out of nothing, or are we in hot water? Your thoughts please....
The Club last night released a statement;
"Arsenal Football Club is aware that BBC Newsnight is carrying a story this evening purporting to describe Arsenal's relationship with Belgian football club, Beveren.
Arsenal does not normally make public its agreements with third parties. However, Arsenal can confirm that it has had a technical relationship with Beveren since 2001. This relationship has a number of benefits to both clubs such as providing a platform to share coaching methods and techniques as well as facilitating the option of players being loaned between the clubs. For example, during the course of the relationship, Arsenal players David Grondin, Liam Chilvers, John Halls and Graham Stack all spent successful loan periods at Beveren as did Emmanuel Eboue, who played in a number of trial matches with Arsenal whilst contracted to Beveren. Such was the latter player's success, Arsenal subsequently signed Eboue on a permanent basis.
In addition, Arsenal confirms that it has never owned, directly or indirectly, any shares in Beveren or had any power whatsoever to influence its management or administration. It did in 2001 provide funds of 1,570,703 Euros by way of loan to a member of the consortium to assist in stabilising the finances of Beveren.
At no time has anyone at Arsenal been contacted by any regulatory or investigatory body with respect to its relationship with Beveren. Arsenal and all its staff have acted properly throughout, in accordance with all applicable rules and regulations, and in the best interests of Beveren, Arsenal and the broader footballing community."
Is this someone making something out of nothing, or are we in hot water? Your thoughts please....
posted by NyssietheGooner at 9:02 AM
15 Comments:
Ian Grant has it spot on. Look at the timing of the "release" of this story. Just as Chelsea have yet again rubbed the noses of the footballing world and made the PL race even more onesided, this story appears. Out of the blue...
It has absolutely nothing to it. Every team with any ambition has so called feeder clubs and clubs with which it holds close ties. This goes especially for Man U, Arsenal, Chelsea and even Spurs. It used to be Ajax who were the synonyms of club cooperation and sharing of player and coaching ressources.
There is nothing in this story, and it is merely a smokescreen to cover the real rot of modern football and the few people on top benefiting from it. And it does not take a genius to know where to look for the culprit of the decline of the game. (who are your choices?)
With football optimism
Gus J
Watched Newsnight lastnight and the report was way over the top. They tried to make it seem like really big news, when it's not.
Maybe they're just bored of doing reports about American troops killing Iraqi women and children, so they thought that this might be more important.
It also seems like every expert that I've heard comment on this so far, has dismissed it as being nothing that could get Arsenal in trouble.
Nothing to worry about.
GunnerPete says...were Chelsea thrown out of the Champions league for blatantly tapping up players ? Also Man U for the same? But AFC do things correctly and look how fast BLatter talks to the BBC ! Funny, this appears just when reports show the Russians are intent on ruining the Premeirship as a competition for ever with 4 signings already.
the thing that interests me about this story, as Simon Baker wrote, is that Damien Comolli was Arsenal's European scout in 2001... he now is Spurs' director of football - the smell is not of football gone bad but of Daniel Levy's sour grapes... will Spurs stop at nothing to try & get into the champions league??? all they have to do is play better football...
and the Beveren link was common knowledge... after all, Arsenal announced it on their website at the time... so it would be very surprising and stupid if everything hadn't been above board
Nothing will come of it at all - there's just a lack of domestic scandal in the game at the moment. Stories like this will arise with increasing frequency because of the Italian scandal in volving Juventus.
'Anonymous': I wouldn't say that Chelsea have any involvement in the above story. If it's one thing I'm becoming bored of at Arsenal (as a gunner ST holder) it's the bitterness shown towards Chelsea. Not everything that's wrong with Arsenal is to do with Chelsea and it's about time we woke up and realised that - that stems from the management right through to the fans.
At the end of the day, there will always be suspicions aimed at Arsenal because of Deins involvement at the FA. It's similar to the ref of the CL final after all the controversy of the Chelsea Vs Barca game at Stamford Bridge..why appoint him to ref Barca again? In this case why should ANY ONE club have an influence at the FA...? Surely all clubs should have a rep and call it quits?
This is a political sledging match to prevent DD from being realected. Arsenal have done nothing wrong and the BBC should feel ashamed for trying to make something of nothing. This story has been fed to them by a third party and the motivation of it is quite clear.
By the way!! FIFA will not investigate until they are given a report from the FA as stated by Blater. Expect this to drag on for ages until it fades out to nothing!
I agree with Steve...
There was also an interesting quote in the Chelsea / Spurs / Arneson case from Levy:
"I will not be coerced by others into reporting Chelsea to the FA"
If that doesn't imply that Dein was encouraging him to do just that then I don't know what was! I was ashamed of Dein when I read that - especially when there was a vague allegation of us tapping up a player in South America at the time!
It's probably worth repeating this to aid the hard of thinking:
Double D was elected by his counterparts in the other premiership clubs to represent the premiership clubs. He has had this appointment for some time, being re-elected at least once that I'm aware of.
If the clubs have a problem with that, wouldn't they have elected someone else?
Rob - I agree.
Therefore, if these reports aren't from Chelsea or Spurs then why have they been reported so strongly in the media? Especially when many influential people in the media are Gunners and often report our club to be whiter than white??
If you ask me all the buff from Wenger about our club upholding the decency of the game was always going to lead to trouble! All this about if you are caught speeding then you deserve to be punished. What a load of buff. I notice how quite he is being about it all!
All I will say is that if it were Chelski in this trouble we'd be all over them saying how wrong it was and calling for points docking yada yada yada.
If Ashley leaves for Chelsea after all his promises that he is staying... I hope his new watch breaks and isn't under guarantee
Pots, kettles, glass houses etc. BBC did you forget about Dr. Kelly? Perhaps you'd like to investigate Abramovic's dealings with a South American club and with CSKA Moscow, or Man Utd's dealings with BSKYB who provide the FA Disciplinary panel with footage? Once this story is proved to be the non event it is, I will watch with interest how many column inches it gets. Who knows, maybe the BBC is sick of false rape allegations against footballers?
i agree nothing will probably come of it but if it was all above board why did the belge police have to investigate to find out the million came from us? and why did arsene deny his involvement at first? hope it all comes out in the wash.
Just imagine if it was Chelski an Kenyon....there'd be far more made of this than there is because it's Arsenal.
Now why might that be? ... How can the FA conduct an independent report into something that is heavily influenced by the person they are investigating?
You lot have always been at it - from Henry Norris in the good old days when you were forcibly relegated..through Graham's brown paper bags of cash...right through to now.
And Wenger has the bloody cheek to sit there and accuse of Chelsea of breaking the rules all the time.
No rules were broken. Wenger invested in Ivory Coast youth before he even came to Arsenal. Already the Belgium police looked into the ownership of the Kick company and found no link to any ownership at ANYBODY at Arsenal!!! AND that statement about us keeping quite? Was the official statement released done in braille?
It seems that the anonymous of 11.51 might need to go back and read my earlier post. You, mate, are exactly the kind of person that was aimed at.
Incidentally, it would appear that Chelsea are "at it". Roman has an interest in CSKA Moscow does he not? Oh and us and Chelsea are not the only ones; ENIC PLC have an interest in several clubs, besides Spurs, I believe.
I reckon there are probably loads more links when you dig into it.
This - and I mean the whole thing, not picking on any one club - might be distasteful, might not be what us fans who each think our club is special want to hear, but it appears to be "just business" these days for the people who control football clubs.
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