The Sunday papers confirmed what I knew last week : that Danny Fiszman has hired headhunters to find a new MD.
The Sunday Times headline was : Arsenal flash the cash
The strapline on Wayne Veysey’s story was :The Gunners are ready to spend big money to attract a new managing director to support Arsène Wenger next season.
The first par was : ARSENAL are ready to make their new managing director the highest-paid executive in football. Director Danny Fiszman has ordered headhunters to scour the worlds of football, industry and media to find the “best person” for the job after Keith Edelman was forced out of his £1m-a-year post last week.
Does that mean Danny sacked Keith Edelman suddenly and had nobody in mind for his job ?
The Sunday Times said Richard Scudamore is one of the names in the frame. Last year I heard that Scudamore turned down the IMG job, the Mark McCormack organisation. I was wholly dismayed by Scudamore’s fudge on third-party ownership of Tevez & Mascherano at West Ham, and his bungled presentation of the 39th game. On those issues he was everything a chief executive should not be. So I can’t say that I fancy Scudamore for such a vital job as Arsenal MD at this very crucial time.
It’s extraordinary that Danny had nobody in mind for the job. It may even be that Danny thought the commercial deals Edelman made were good deals. Did he think Keith was running the business well until two weeks ago ?
Memo to headhunter : check out Michael Kennedy. He knows football and players’ contracts. Michael and his brother John are lawyers who support Arsenal. John is one of the movers-and-shakers on the London music business, while Michael looks after David O’Leary, Niall Quinn, Roy Keane, all those Irish guys. At the moment, I gather that Michael is virtually the chairman of Sunderland, working behind Quinny.
Clearly, Michael Kennedy must have had dealings with Ken Friar in the past. That should not be a disadvantage.
So my message to Danny is the same as my message to Arsene: win the summer. Get it right. You have to get it right. Get it right on the field and off the field. Get better people on board and improve the club quickly. This Arsenal club, and this team, are a long way from what they could be and should be. Yes, a helluva lot has been achieved under huge pressures. Arsenal is now a big club and a good MD is as important as the acquisition of a six foot four centreback like Lucio, Gilberto’s mate. With the right MD, and three experienced players, Arsenal could be a fantastic club by 2010.
But where are we, exactly, in this summer of 2008 ?
Well, this is the second summer without David Dein. If they get it wrong this summer they will not be playing to 60,000 people throughout next season. There are two billionaires waiting patiently in the wings and neither is on the board. Arsenal are working quietly with the American, which is the right thing to do, since Stan Kroenke is a very smart sports tycoon.
If results were to go pear-shaped next season, an Arsenal crisis would be the biggest story in world sport.
This is a massive summer because there’s a definite tide of opinion against Arsene now. Fans do not want to watch kids who cannot win trophies. They are tired of watching Eboue and Senderos, they rarely see Rosicky or Van Persie, and they realise that Walcott might never do what Ashley Young is doing at Aston Villa.
Arsenal is a healthy, ongoing business but more and more people are getting fed up, and they don’t like what they are seeing and hearing. It’s not just the usual neurotics. When the Online Gooner, the most sensible and supportive fanzine, is asking whether Wenger has taken the club as far as he can, we’re getting into uncharted waters.
As I say, this is the second summer without Dein and Arsene never did appoint that Director of Football. We are now being told – make sure you note this – that the new MD has to “support Arsene”.
So it’s always going be Arsene FC, it’s always going to be a French club playing in the English League, and there will never be any dissenting voices within a 25-mile exclusion zone of London Colney.
The one-man show will continue and the spotlight will remain firmly on one man. When you buy the world’s most expensive football ticket, you buy into his ideas about how the beautiful game should be played. You buy into what he does and what he does not do. After almost 12 years, you know what he does, and what he does not do, especially if you’ve been reading ANR.
Remember not to ask : Is this team half as good as the Arsenal teams of 1998 or 2002 or 2004 ?