25 Feb 2013 19:13:16
Jan 2012: Ivan Gazidis, “[Our model] does mean we can't afford to compete with oil money, and we can't afford to compete with super-wealthy individuals from Russia, ”
“Yes, we can't afford to spend £50-70 million on an individual player. But we're proud of the way we do things, and we're proud of the results that we're able to produce from that. ”

Oct 2012: excerpts from the AGM late last year
Q: You’re putting profit on the balance sheet over success on the pitch. You sell our best players. Operating loss of over £16m has affected the transfer dealings. Was RVP sold to comply with UEFA fair play rules?
IVAN: We lose a player like RVP, not because we want to, but have to make sure we are creating a sustainable future for ourselves.

Q: I believe fans and board have different ambitions. Estimates by outside bodies say our uncommitted cash reserves are at £70m. Is this money really available for Wenger to use?
IVAN: We don’t talk publicly about the money we have available despite being transparent. We certainly do make the money we have available for reinvestment into the team. That doesn’t mean that we spend every penny in each transfer window. Within constraints, all money we make is available to make a competitive team. There may be issues with a player in terms of contractual obligations and fitting in with your team. You can buy someone who is available but not top quality, or wait and buy someone who your manager actually wants.

Dec 2012: Ivan Gazidis at a reception with AST members after the Bradford loss, assured them significant funds were available to spend on bringing in players next month.
AST spokesman Tim Payton said: “The Arsenal Supporters’ Trust cannot fathom why £70million was left untouched this summer. Arsene needs to get over his distaste for spending and use the resources that are provided by the hard-pressed fans who watch the team. ”
NOTE- Ivan had not used this “70 million” figure in public.


Jan 2013: Wenger says, "We will spend big (again) because we had restricted finances because we had built the stadium and had to pay that back. ”
"You look at any club who has done that, and they have gone down (in performance). ”
"We stayed at the top level, yes without winning the Premier League, but we were always at the top level. ”
"Now we have come out in a much stronger position financially again, so we can spend. ”

A quick look at the Arsenal books reveals a scary trend. For the past three years, our operational profits have decreased, probably due to growing costs and poor commercial deals, and had it not been for us selling players every year, the club would’ve been run at a loss. We did sell players every year though and we did make a profit as a whole by buying players of lesser quality to replace them. The profits go into the reserve finances and the pennies in Shareholders’ Funds have grown steadily year after year without being put back into the club. The figure as of November 2012 stands at 312, 450,000. It was 297, 548,000 before we sold RVP and Song and bought Santi, Poldi and Ollie. There’s a mention of a “robust financial platform from cash reserves of £123.3 million” in the latest financial holdings report but we’ll have to wait till summer before we can see it being used, if at all.

I’ve tried not to speculate here, like most of us tend to do. I’ve just used quotes from interview quotes and data from the holdings reports available on the Arsenal site. Correct me if any information is wrong.

1.) 25 Feb 2013
So in lamens terms we are screwed!