How will Arsenal’s Senior Management Team look post-Vinai?

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Morning all!

Following on from the new that Arsenal CEO Vinai Venkatesham to step down next summer, we thought we would look into what Arsenal’s Senior Management Team will look like post-Vinai.

In recent years, Arsenal have had a few different management structures, from a single person who oversees everything to joint management at the top.

Back in the late 2010’s, Ivan Gazidis was CEO, with Vinai, Raul Sanllehi and Sven Mislintat as equals underneath him.

Vinai, as Chief Commercial Officer, focused on the business side of Arsenal, Sanllehi oversaw football operations and Mislintat the recruitment side.

Following Gazidis’s departure in 2018, there was a power struggle within the 3 equals below him.

Sanllehi and Mislintat both seemed to look to position themselves to replace Gazidis and, following disgrements on Arsenal’s transfer policy, Mislintat left.

Mislintat’s departure left Arsenal with just Vinai and Sanllehi. They entered a sort of power sharing agree, with Vinai promoted to Managing Director and Sanllehi promoted to Head of Football. This lasted a little more than 2-years before Sanllehi left.

Sanllehi’s departure in 2020 saw Vinai appointed as CEO nd given sole responsibility for the day-to-day running of the club. He would oversee a new senior management team that also saw Edu take on many of Sanllehi’s duties as the clubs technical director.

Richard Garlick was appointed in 2021 as Director of Football Operations and was soon joined by Julia Slott as Chief Commercial Officer. Last year, was Edu promoted to Sporting Director.

So Vinai departs with the club having a similar structure to that of the Gazidis days – a CEO overseeing the entire club, then one person overseeing the commercial side (Slott), one over seeing the football side (Garlick), and one in charge of recruitment (Edu).

So what are Arsenal’s options now?

If history repeats itself, we could see Slott and Garlick take up the post-Gazidis Vinai and Sanllehi roles.

Slott would be solely responsible for the commercial side of Arsenal, Garlick responsible for the football operations, with the pair working in tandem and reporting directly into the Kroenke’s (Josh on a more day to day basis).

The second option is that we try to mimic the current structure, with Slott becoming the new CEO.

Slott will be following the path of Vinai if this happens – moving from Chief Commercial Officer into the CEO position.

She would then be replaced in the structure by newly appointed Omar Mohammed Shaikh.

Shaikh is the new Partnerships Sales Director and operates at a level below Slott on the commercial side of the business. He was previously Vice President of Commercial Development at Liverpool, reporting directly into the CEO.

It does not take too much mental gymnastics to think that the club knew about Vinai’s intentions some time ago and saw Slott as his natural successor. As a result, they appointed someone who could fill her shoes, allowing Slott to make that step up.

The issue the club faces is Slott is very unpopular with many Arsenal fans having fumbled the changes in the ticketing processes. Her appointment would see plenty of disgruntled noises from the terraces, and risks alienating fans.

Arsenal is a good place to be right now. On the pitch, off the pitch and on the terraces, it feels like One Arsenal. Slott’s appointment could undo that.

The result could be that we end up in a similar position to Manchester United when they appointed Ed Woodward.

Manchester United declined rapidly under Woodward’s 10 year leadership and relations between club and fans created a hostile atmosphere at Old Trafford. The feeling is that a Slott appointment as CEO could re-open old wounds.

So the solution?

If the club want a less controversial figure, they could opt for Garlick as CEO, with Edu and Slott reporting into him.

Garlick has been behind a lot of the improvements we have seen with the financial side of the team.

Since his appointment, we saw highly paid players depart which drove the wage bill down. This allowed for new investment in younger, exciting talent. He has also been key in the new contracts for the likes of Bukayo Saka, William Saliba and Gabriel Martinelli.

Garlick is a football man having been Director of Football Administration at West brom before moving to the Premier League as Director of Football. But is he suitable for CEO?

A CEO in any business has to be a commercial strategic leader.

They would have a track record of track record of developing and delivering strategies, building successful teams and delivering growth and profit. It is not quite what Garlick does.

My feeling is that the CEO should be “business first, football second”.

You operate a strong and successful business model, a strong and successful football team should follow – the additional revenue leads to being able to recruit better players, coaches, etc.

If the CEO comes from a football administration background, their decisions could lead to decisions that might be a positive for the football side, but a negative for the business of Arsenal. The result could lead to financial insecurity.

But what for Josh Kroenke and Tim Lewis?

I have seen some say Josh might step into the CEO role. I would be very surprised.

CEO of a business is a not a part time job. He would have to be working in London, for Arsenal, 60 hours a week.

Considering his roles with the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalache, as well as his other business interests, I doubt he will have the time to commit to Arsenal full time.

The other name continually mentioned is Tim Lewis.

Lewis was formally a partner at law firm Clifford Chance, where he worked alongside the Kroenke’s on their deal to buy Arsenal. He was appointed as a non-executive director of Arsenal in 2020.

In October last year, he resigned his partnership with the firm to “place more emphasis on his work with Arsenal”.

In March 2023, he became “Executive Vice-Chair”. In simple terms, Lewis chairs Arsenal board meetings in the absence of either of the Kroenke’s, and he is the man that reports directly into them.

It is not clear what further day to day involvementhis Lewis has with Arsenal, nor if he is even an employee of the club. There is a feeling from outside that he is heavilly involved in every major decision the club takes.

Could Lewis be the man to step into Vinai’s shoes and take a more official role in the club?

There is certainly a headache for the Kroenkes and Tim Lewis. As board members, they will be responsible for appointing Vinai’s successor.

The power struggle and poor appointments after Gazidis left crippled our club.

We wasted millions on poor recruitment, saw our commercial income plummet, huge fan discontent and the football team decline. We can not afford to make the same mistakes again…

Keenos

Last remaining senior employee of Arsenal’s “banter era” set to depart – but who will replace Vinai Venkatesham

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Huge Arsenal news yesterday as it was announced that CEO Vinai Venkatesham to step down next summer. It is interesting to see the response to his departure.

Most Arsenal fans seem happy, and I fully understand why.

Vinai Venkatesham was the last remaining senior members of staff left at the club from the 2010s. A period where it felt like there was a chasm between the club and fans.

He joined in 2010, with his focus on building our commercial deals. When Ivan Gazidis left in 2018, he was promoted from Chief Commercial Officer to Managing Director.

In his role as MD, he worked in tandem with Raul Sanllehi, Arsene Wenger and Sven Mislintat. It was a foresome that nearly destroyed our club.

Following the departures of Sanllehi, Vinai was promoted to CEO and given sole responsibility for the day-to-day running of the club.

Whilst in the last few years the club and fans have become closer, the feeling is that this is despite Venkatesham, not due to him.

Credit for building those bridges has to go to Mikel Arteta, Edu and Per Mertesacker. Those 3 really are the driving force behind everything good at the club right.

To highlight this, it was Venkatesham who agreed for Arsenal to join the European Super League. Following its collapse, he had to apologise to Arteta, the players and the fans for his decision.

Venkatesham departing certainly seems like the end of that era where we were run without consideration to match going fans. Like Gazidis, he just did not seem to get what it mean to be a football fan.

I doubt too many Arsenal fans will be worried about the news. Although the response from opposing fans has been odd…

“Arsenal downfall incoming”
“The downfall of the club is about to hit really hard”
“The Arsenal downfall starts here and NOW”

It is almost like opposing fans did not really understand the role Vinai played in our club. His departure certainly will not effect us on the pitch….

The only concern from my point of view is who takes over.

“Be careful what you wish for” springs to mind for those who have spent a few years demanding him to depart.

Vinai’s replacement needs to be someone from a sporting business background, and nost just a sporting background. The job description is running the whole club. it is a role not suited to the football men of the club so that rules out the likes of Edu.

It is a serious role, an important role. Certainly not a ceremonial role. So if you are calling for Arsene Wenger or David Dein then you are a long way wide in your opinion.

Julie Slott is probably in pole position to take the job. She is our current Chief Commercial Officer, the role Vinai held prior to promotion.

it is also interesting to note that Arsenal have recently appointed Omar Mohammed Shaikh as Partnerships Sales Director. Omar was previously Vice President of Commercial Development at Liverpool, reporting directly into the CEO.

It feels like Shaikh has been recruited to replace Slott in a year, with Slott then primed to take over from Vinai.

Julia Slott has had a huge role to play in the ticketing fiasco and was reportedly behind the Ashburton Army having their allocation cut. You wonder if, like Vinai, she is just too far departed to understand what match going fans want.

Yes, she might have over 20 years experience in the sporting industry, but all of her roles have been about “how can we make more money” and not “how can we be better for our fans”. And it is that second one many of these business people forget.

They ignore the fans that go through the turnstile week in, week out. They are obsessed by balance sheets and generating more money. Success on the field is second to success in the accounts.

So be careful what you wish for…

Keenos

Manchester City sell-out whilst Arsenal publish Premier League squad list

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Morning!

One step closer to proper football returning.

I have lost count of how often I have moaned about this early international break. In fact, one of the first blogs I wrote on SheWore.com was an international rant. Oddly enough, we played Scotland in a meaningless friendly back then as well!

The good news is that it sounds like all Arsenal players have returned from international duty unharmed. And the silver lining to the break is Gabriel Jesus has got another 2 weeks training under his belt, and just over half an hour of senior game time.

Will he be ready to start v Everton on Sunday? I would not be surprised if he plays the first 60 minutes.

Everton, of course, was supposed to be Saturday.

It was originally selected for late afternoon kick off time by the TV companies, but always had an asterix against it. That asterix was due to Newcastle v Brentford being selected for the 4:30pm Sunday kick off.

The TV companies knew before they selected that game that it might have to move if Newcastle were drawn to play in the Champions League on Tuesday. There plan was to swap it for the Arsenal fixture if that happened. And it did.

Once again, a game changed with 2 weeks notice, two fingers to both Arsenal and Brentford fans.

I am not really sure why the TV companies did not look at the impending Champions League draw and think ” let’s be fair to fans, have all Saturday kick offs for the Champions League teams that weekend”.

They could have easily originally scheduled Newcastle to host Brentford on the Saturday 12:30pm kick off, and then the Wolves v Liverpool fixture on that late Sunday kick off.

Instead, they once more showed they do not care about the match going fans they argued they defended during the European Super League debacle.

I can not wait to hear Gary Neville or Jamie Carragher’s condescending tone as they congratulate both sets of London fans making the journey” despite late changes and no trains home”, ignoring the fact that it was their employers decision as to why those late changes needed to be made.

One interesting story that caught my eye last night was Man City sell out of all available tickets for every Premier League home game this season.

When I saw the headline I thought “bollocks have they. Tickets are sold throughout the season on a game by game basis. Then Iread the article (hint to everyone, read an article before you comment. You will stop looking as stupid on Facebook).

The Blues changed up their ticketing policy this summer after consulting with fan group City Matters, making the majority of tickets for every game available at the same time. In doing this, the intention was to remove the pressure that people previously had of needing to be online on the morning when each individual game went on sale.

Arsenal have their well publicised ticketing issues this season, and whilst selling all tickets in one go will not solve any of our problems, it is an interesting change.

On one hand, the scrap for tickets can become a blood bath. Multiple browsers open, setting alarm, scheduling meetings at work that don’t exist and so on.

In the past I have missed out on away tickets just because when my “window” came up, the thought slipped my mind to buy tickets.

Selling in a single block at the start of the season would mean that you only have one date to remember. Whether it still resulted in a scrap for tickets on that day you will have to ask City fans (all 6 of them).

The flip side is many people choose not to have a season ticket because they do not want to commit to an event that is 6 months down the line. They like being able to buy a ticket 2 months in advance when they will be more aware of their availability.

Likewise, many can not afford to spunk £1000 on a single day. Their decision to try and buy tickets might strive from how much cash they have in their pocket on the day the tickets come available. And the answer is not “just put it on a credit card.”

I think there is an underestimation of those that leave hand to month, pay cheque to pay cheque. Especially those paid weekly or who might be on temporary contracts.

It is wrong to expect people to get into debt to go football.

I would like to hear from City fans as to whether the change in ticketing policy has been a good one or not. I am sure other clubs are watching them and might go down the same road if it proves popular….

Finally, our Premier League squad was named yesterday.

Following the Champions League squad announcement earlier in the week, we knew there would not be any surprised.

Edu has done a great job slimming the squad down (by hook or by crook) and ensuring that we were not in a position where we had to leave players unregistered.

We have named a full 25 man squad, including Jurrien Timber.

That means if we do want to sign anyone in January, someone will have to be de-registered.

James Hillson, Cedric Soares  and Mohamed Elneny seem the most likely candidates.

Enjoy your Thursday.

Keenos