By Tony Attwood
It is interesting that the media day after day after day continue with its key Arsenal themes: that Arsenal should be doing better, and to do better Arsenal should spend more money ontransfers. Or rather better said, Arsenal are planning to spend money on transfers, although they are not always aggressive enough and fast enough to get the right players.
What is never mentioned however (except [by us](https://untold-arsenal.com/archives/114451), and in the [NY Times](https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6131043/2025/03/20/the-bookkeeper-arsenal-finances-transfer-psr/?source=athletic_weeklyemail&campaign=602288&userId=3954034)) is how any of this accords with Arsenal’s financial position. Now maybe there is an excuse for this because for 16 consecutive years up to the time of the pandemic, (and that pretty much means the era coinciding with Wenger’s reign) Arsenal made a profit. But then the Kroenke’s took full control and those losses started to roll in. In fact six consecutive years of making a loss. In the losses over those last six years at around a third of a billion pounds, have pretty much removed the accumulated profits of the previous 16 years.
Now we must admit that since October 2018 Arsenal have been spending money on the thing most supporters welcome – buying players while also getting more and more income through player sales, higher prices, and more and more and more marketing. So we can’t complain that the Kroenkes have been taking money out. Arsenal have simply been losing it, having under Wenger had all those years of making money.
This in turn means that Profit and Sustainability Rules now begin to matter, although these have been mitigated to some degree by the club issuing and the owners buying more and more shares, although this is now said to have reached its limit. Instead, there have been the loans that the Kroenke family have been making to the club.
Nevertheless, Arsenal have started to reign things in, not specifically to make a profit but to ensure they don’t slip into the PSR net and thus have a points deduction.
You will I am sure recall the clubs that have thrown their toys out of the pram when anyone suggests they are in breach of PSR rules – Leicester and Manchester C are the most litigious in this regard, fighting every step of the way. Aston Villa, Nottingham Forest, Newcastle United, and Everton have all been struck down with charges.
Arsenal however, although losing money have still got some wriggle room, meaning they could lose another £90m or so and remain ok – providing nothing goes wrong.
What’s more the player wages are under the “70% of turnover” limit, but big spending on new players without equivalent sales is getting harder by the day. Which means that dashing out and buying the new centre forward that the media demanded while the club was beaten in goals scored only by the Mancs was not easy to manage.
Thus reaching this position of safe loss-making while getting to a position of challenging ManC has been achieved by making more money. Income in fact has risen by £150m year.
Partly this has happened because success brings money. Finish higher up the league, and more money comes in from broadcasting (the club is on TV more often and in more countries), sponsors, fans at the games and advertisers. The Arsenal stadium project which saw the end of Highbury has also been a huge success, ensuring that Arsenal earns over £131m a game. And the return to the Champions League from the wasteland of the Europa has helped too. So has the fact that Arsenal have been winning more games.
Indeed as things stand only Manchester United is now pulling in more money on each match day than Arsenal. Tottenham with their super whizzo amazing “let’s tell everyone this is the best stadium in the universe to cover up the fact that the team is 14th in the league” takes in around £30m less. And the debt remains.
Of course, the fact that ManC only take just over half the amount of Arsenal on a match day doesn’t worry them – they take their money from elsewhere as we know, but there is one problem. Arsenal’s great leap forward cannot be done in secret. Clubs watch each other, and although Tottenham have already spent the cash and sunk into the doldrums others do think they could do it better.. And the word is out, as the NY Times put it, “Since the stadium opened in 2006, Arsenal have booked combined gate receipts of £1.652bn, over four times its initial £390m build cost.”
What’s more, Arsenal can still expect to grow, for in commercial terms Arsenal still lag behind the likes of Chelsea, Liverpool and the like and that means there is still plenty of room for growth from sponsorship and marketing arrangements. Between 2022 and 2023 that revenue grew by 29% in that one year alone.
However, above everything else, there is one trick that Arsenal have pulled off over and over which gives them an advantage, which we see in every match: the constant stream of quality young players who come in with no transfer fee and lower salaries. Just think how much they save the club!