Arsènal (26 page)

Just as suddenly as David Dein's departure just over a year earlier, on 1st May 2008, Edelman was gone. The man who had replaced the former vice-chairman as the day-to-day decision-maker at the club joined him in having his nameplate removed from under his seat in the directors' box, despite leaving with a 12-month ‘consultancy' agreement. The abrupt nature of his parting, hinting at a dramatic turn of events, was evidenced by people turning up for appointments with him on the day of his dismissal. The exact reasons for the decision remain a secret, although speculation circulated that the Highbury Square development may have been a particular problem. There were newspaper stories stating that the board had already been actively seeking to install a more football-orientated managing director. Certainly, it was an unusual state of affairs that saw “the number cruncher” go just a month before the financial year end. Edelman's final sighting at Arsenal came the following week when spotted by a couple of shareholders who had just attended a question-and-answer session with the manager. They saw him on the way from Arsenal Underground station heading for Highbury House, presumably to collect his effects, uncharacteristically dressed in jeans and a casual shirt. He was almost unrecognisable without his usual working attire of suit and tie. For once he had the appearance of a football man, which he never really was. That he should suffer the same fate as Dein – unquestionably a football man through and through – was a rich irony as the two men never hit it off from day one.

A petty incident symbolises their mutual distaste for one another. There was a particular parking space that was best placed to enter the Clock End reception area at the old Highbury Stadium. It was commandeered by Dein before Edelman's appointment by the club. Edelman, who used to arrive for work earlier than Dein, took to parking in his spot. The vice-chairman did not take kindly to being trumped in the car park as well as marginalised in the boardroom. One evening, on leaving later than Edelman, he placed a traffic cone across the empty place to reserve it for himself the following day. When Edelman arrived, without a moment's hesitation he drove straight over the cone, indifferent to any possible damage to the undercarriage of his expensive vehicle and went upstairs to his office. One can only wonder if anyone ever put Dein fully in the picture.

Edelman tried to get onside with the supporters by talking the talk, citing Robert Pires as his favourite Arsenal player. (Surely it was just a happy coincidence that Pires had reserved an apartment at Highbury Square.) But he never convinced. When the club made moves to trademark the word ‘Gooner' – a term adopted by the fans themselves in the mid-1970s after being labelled as such by Tottenham supporters – the managing director explained that as far as he was concerned “we [Arsenal] own it [the word]”. His reasoning presumably was that without the club, the term wouldn't exist. It indicated how, despite his efforts, his sentiments were different to those of the supporters. Following David Dein, Edelman was named as his successor as the president of the Arsenal Ladies football team. But unlike his predecessor, he didn't attend many of their matches. One of his final moves was to tell Vic Akers he might be replaced as the coach of the Ladies, bewildering after they had won 29 major trophies in 17 seasons under his stewardship, peaking with a victorious UEFA Cup campaign in 2007. According to Dein, still keeping tabs on his former charges, Akers was heartbroken, but Edelman thought it would be better to have a female coach. On the Managing Director's departure Akers, a popular figure at the club, was informed that he would be allowed to continue in the role after all.

Edelman would not have come top of a popularity poll amongst the staff, but the tough decisions required to keep the club running smoothly within a tight budget at a time of huge change weren't going to win him that particular contest. More importantly though, he was able to extend the 14-year, £260 million, loan on the stadium at a cheaper fixed-interest rate over 25 years. Under the terms of the deal, the club had to make a one-off payment of £21 million to buy out the original commitment but the annual interest repayments fell from £32 million to £20 million (less than half that of Manchester United). With £3 million-plus coming into the coffers with every home matchday, it was a far more manageable amount. The restructuring proved to be a smart piece of business as, a year on, a crisis in the US sub-prime market made borrowing a far more difficult and expensive business. In fairness to Edelman, he was ultimately a beneficiary and then a victim of the changing economic environment that first facilitated the successful refinancing of the new stadium debt but then led to concerns that for the club to develop Highbury Square themselves might not have made such sound economic sense in the light of the credit crunch that came along. By perhaps second guessing fiscal trends he might have made himself a hostage to fortune and, although his departure left the club with a short-term vacancy, he had fundamentally achieved what he had been brought in to do: secure the financing of the stadium and thereby underwrite the future of the club.

So, barely two years after the opening of the Emirates, two nameplates had already been removed from the spanking new directors' box. Ken Friar, who was doing David Dein's job, now had to step into Edelman's shoes
pro tem
as acting managing director. Friar had become the boardroom equivalent of a reliable utility player, an Arsenal man to the core. But he was no replacement for Dein. Four weeks after Edelman had been given his cards, Danny Fiszman announced that the club were searching for a chief financial officer and a chief executive officer to replace the position of managing director. “The CEO will work with the manager, negotiate player purchases, sales and wage contracts,” he explained. Until the appointment was made, Wenger resumed his travels to procure new talent when time permitted now that Dein was no longer available to make such sorties. But perhaps the club had already paid the price: the Brazilian wonderkid Alexandre Pato and France's Frank Ribery might have ended up in north London instead of Milan and Munich in the summer of 2007 if Dein had still been around. There can be little doubt he would have been dutifully scouring the globe on Wenger's behalf.

By the conclusion of the 2007/08 season, Red and White Holdings Ltd was still in the market for Arsenal shares. There weren't many available, but at a reduced going rate of £7,500 each due to the lockdown agreement it was not surprising there wasn't much buying and selling going on. It was a slow journey towards the cherished 25 per cent that would allow Usmanov to block any special resolutions the board might require an EGM for. But without one of the significant shareholders selling up or Usmanov offering ever-spiralling amounts to those with smaller holdings, he will find it difficult to reach the 30 per cent that would oblige him to make a compulsory bid for the company, a bid that would not succeed anyway, as long as the directors stayed true to their extended lockdown agreement.

However, the fear that a good number of the prospective purchasers who had put 10 per cent down on Highbury Square apartments might cut and run in the light of plummeting property prices means Arsenal's garden is suddenly far from rosy. The board know they are treading financial water until the Highbury Square revenue starts coming in. It is a tortuous wait, but they've made it most of the way, albeit with some casualties. Crucially, Wenger is still at the helm, the team are contenders again and the stadium continues to put up sold out notices. Now, the directors look forward to a new era when they can concentrate on being a football club once again.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The original cover of Arsenal's
2007/08 Handbook
featured a photograph of three players standing proudly together, arms crossed. Gilberto was in the middle, slightly in front of William Gallas and Kolo Toure. All three were displaying the captain's armband. By the time the publication went to press, the photo had been swapped for one of the giant club crests that adorn the exterior of the Emirates Stadium. The arms crossed picture had been taken at a time when the somewhat fanciful notion of sharing the captaincy was doing the rounds. Wenger evidently felt was that there was no obvious choice to replace the departed Thierry Henry, although Gilberto had been his deputy the previous season. All three had a justifiable claim to being the chosen one.

The captaincy had become a thorny issue ever since the departure of Patrick Vieira. Wenger had been fortunate to inherit Tony Adams, and by the time of Adams's retirement, Vieira had worn the armband on enough occasions to make the transition seamless. In the summer of 2005, when Wenger decided it was time for Vieira to move on, Thierry Henry had two years remaining on his contract. With no obvious alternative, it was a difficult for the manager not to make his star striker the skipper. To have overlooked him would have been deemed a snub to a sensitive soul that could have strained relations.

Meriting pride of place, Henry undeniably contributed some inspired performances in the Champions League campaign that culminated in a return to his Parisian roots in May 2006. However, in a below-par performance in that final he missed gilt-edged chances to score, perhaps a consequence of the added responsibility weighing him down. Did his position as captain influence his choice to stay with the club at a critical period in its history? Whether his decision was an act of selflessness or not (albeit one with enormous financial rewards when his £100,000 plus weekly wage was combined with the upfront payment of his entire loyalty bonus), it cut little ice once the manager decided that the chief benefit of the contract renewal was the fact that he would not be forced to dispose of the player for less than his market value.

How would the club cope without Thierry Henry after his move to Barcelona in 2007? Of more immediate concern, who should succeed him as captain? Arsène Wenger had elevated Arsenal to the top level in world football – huge stadium, sell-out crowds, phenomenal income – and yet he did not have an obvious leader in the ranks. The three-way experiment was never put to the test as Gilberto was absent leading Brazil in the
Copa America
in June and July, and as a consequence missed out on the pre-season preparation enjoyed by colleagues. In the warm-up matches Gallas and Toure each took turns with the armband, although when tournaments – the inaugural Emirates Cup at home and in Amsterdam at Ajax's ArenA stadium – were won, Gallas collected the trophies. Three days before the first Premier League fixture against Fulham, Wenger announced that Gallas had got the nod ahead of the other contenders, explaining, “Centre back is always the best position to lead on the pitch and it is Gallas who has more experience at the back.” An interesting thought process, but one he discounted two years earlier when Sol Campbell could have filled the role given to a centre forward.

The decision to select Gallas raised a few eyebrows, as the player had been with the club for less than a year. However, there was no question that he detested losing and his CV included a World Cup Final and two Premier League titles, although the manner of his exit from Chelsea hinted that accusations of a quixotic nature might be justified. Additionally he had already earned a reputation for being outspoken, bypassing the censorious mechanism of the Arsenal press office by giving interviews in his native tongue to the French press. No diplomat he. A view amongst some fans was that he was such a moaner that he must have been given the captaincy to encourage him to choose his words more carefully.

Gilberto's
Copa America
duties had ended with a yellow card in the semi-final in early July but Arsène Wenger wasn't about to rush him back into the fray. The Brazil captain was given three and a half weeks off, during which time he learnt he had been overlooked. The manager explained his absence: “It will take two or three weeks to get him ready. If we don't do that he will suffer during rest of the season.” He suffered anyway, as the impressive form of his stand-in Mathieu Flamini ensured he never regained a regular starting spot.

Despite the apparent upheaval, the team enjoyed the kind of dream start – eight wins and a solitary draw from the first nine games – that no one had seen coming, except possibly Arsène Wenger. He told a friend, “I am confident that we can challenge; the question is whether the youngsters can last a season.” With Henry no longer around and a perceived lack of improvement in the squad, a top-four place – according to the pre-season previews in the media – was seriously in doubt. During the summer, Wenger had recruited right back Bacary Sagna from Auxerre, striker Eduardo from Croatia Zagreb and midfielder Lassana Diarra from Chelsea. Only Sagna started matches as a matter of course, and immediately looked like an inspired purchase, improving the team both defensively and going forward and suffering none of the usual inhibitions in adapting to a new environment.

It would be a bit melodramatic to say that the pattern of the entire season was set during the very first game, but that is how some supporters saw it. Behind at home to Fulham, and finding it difficult to break through the massed ranks of their opponents, two very late goals turned a potentially humiliating defeat into a springboard for the weeks ahead, even if there were some early hiccups, such as individual errors by Jens Lehmann that resulted in Manuel Almunia replacing him as the first-choice goalkeeper. The team were now scoring many more goals from midfield than hitherto; their possession was more incisive, less prone to over-elaboration. The consistent selection of the mobile Emmanuel Adebayor added variety to the build-up, and with his height and that of substitute Nicklas Bendtner they became more effective at set pieces, particularly when the ball was crossed into the area. It was an aspect of their approach where Wenger's Arsenal had often come up short, epitomised by the relatively low number of headed goals notched by the recently departed club record scorer. It had seemed at times as if the emphasis on possession meant that the team were under orders to forego the aerial option, and the quality of free kicks and corners resulted in poor returns compared to other leading teams.