Is “Arsenal Lagos Football Club” the next logical step for the multi-club model?

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Morning all, and shout out to the “back at work gang”.

I have never been one to take a lot of time off at Christmas (unless I am abroad). I would prefer to sit in my office and do nothing for 3 days, and use that annual leave at more “stressful” teams of the year than book the festive period off.

So shout out to all those back at work today. And also those that never really had time yes. I am talking about you guys in retail, hospitality and transport.

Anyway, I read a little article before Christmas that got me thinking (and inspired this blog).

One of Chelsea’s new owners (bear with me, this is not a blog about them!) spoke prior to Christmas about how he sees the “multi-club” model is the future of football. It has been someting mooted a few times by their various different owners.

Manchester City are perhaps the most “famous” club that run a huge multi-club network.

The City Football Group (CFG) owns and operates 12 clubs across 5 continents. Including Man City, New York City, Melbourne City, Mumbai City, Palermo and Girona.

Africa is the only place where they do not have a team – interestingly Chelsea owners have spoken of Africa as the “big untapped market”. The question is can it actually be tapped into (major brands beyond football have had it down as an utapped market for decades, and it still is!).

I have always felt CFG was basically a big scam.

Man City are the central nucleus of the group, and their owners use the other clubs to help to be “Financial Fair Pay compliant”.

Most of these clubs operate in regions that do not have the FFP restrictions the Premier League and UEFA impose.

Their owners pump millions into these clubs, who then “buy” products off Man City – the products being access to their scouting database, coaching and consultancy services.

They pay a premium for these services and allow for “legitimate” money to flow into City’s bank accounts.

Using companies based abroad, with more favourable rules and regulations is not something no.

Major businessess (think Starbucks, Amazon), use operations in more favourable tax locations to reduce their UK tax bill. There UK operation “buys” something from these overseas companies, at an inflated rate, with the overall aim of reducing tax.

It is perfectly legally, although morally questionable. More tax avoidance than tax evasion.

And CFG have operated similar. although instead of trying to get money out of a UK business, they have used the multi-club model to bring revenue in.

But there is an extension of this multi-club model that goes beyond using these clubs to funnel money in from owners.

Chelsea are a huge name in football. As are Arsenal. As are Manchester United, Liverpool, Barcelona, Real Madrid and so on. All of these have global fan bases of millions, who can not get to games in the UK.

The logical next step of the multi-club model provides a solution to this.

Instead of Chelsea (as an example), owning “independent” clubs in Melbourne, in New York, in Lagos, with their own name and history, what if they “transported” the Chelsea brand name to these cities?

Chelsea Melbourne FC, Chelsea New York FC, Chelsea Lagos FC, and so on (note: You can change Chelsea to Arsenal, Barcelona, etc for the same result).

City has 12 clubs in their group. That could become 12 full stadiums a weekend. Fans flocking to their local Man City side. Supporting them in the same manner they support the Manchester based side.

Arsenal make around £100million in gate receipts across a season. Is it plausible that this can be replicated if KSE franchise the name out across the globe? Have 12 clubs in the group. Potentially £1.2bn a year in revenue? With it all going into KSE’s coffers (rather than Arsenal’s?)

Would fans in Australia, American and Nigeria begin supporting the “Chelsea” in their country? Pay to get through the gate of the local version of the English (or Spanish, German, French, etc) club they support?

Or is this just the Americans (at Chelsea) deluded dream? They seem to think that you can “franchise” out the name of the club like it is a McDonalds. And that fans across the globe will automatically begin following their “local” side alongside the UK version. and thus increasing revenue of the group (in gate receipts).

As someone from London, who has only ever lived in London (bar university in Colchester), I am unable to answer that question.

We have lots of readers from Nigeria (2022 Nigeria was 2nd to the UK in countries that read our blog). So those reading, would you support an Arsenal Lagos? Would you pay to go to Arsenal Lagos games? Would you seem them as “real” Arsenal?

As I sad at the start of the blog. This is more just me letting my mind wonder. But I can certainly see why Chelsea’s owners – and other clubs – will continue to explore multi-club models to make further profits of the name of their main asset.

Have a great day.

Keenos

Emi Martinez – from humble hero to arrogant villan

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From sitting on the pitching crying whilst speaking to his parents in 2020 to making rude gestures in 2022. Emi Martinez has gone from humble hero to arrogant villan in a little over 2 years.

After the 2020 Fa Cup final, whilst his team mates celebrated around him, Martinez took the time to sit down with a phone and call his parents. He was in floods of tears.

Martinez left his native Argentina to join Arsenal shortly after his 17th birthday. Despite heaps of talent, it was beginning to look like it would not happen for him.

Loan spells took him to Oxford United, Sheffield United, Rotherham United, Wolves, Getafe and Reading. It was only in that final loan spell that he began showing that he might have the talent to be a Premier League football.

His breakthrough at Arsenal came through injury to Bernd Leno. The infamous incident at Brighton saw Leno’s season end and Martinez come in for the final 6 Premier League games and 6 FA Cup games.

In that short period he would become a fan favourite. Making fantastic saves, showing brilliant distribution, and becoming a key player as we won the FA Cup.

His actions at the final whistle just further added to his connection to the fans. He was our humble hero.

And then it all changed.

With a year left on his contract, he made it clear that he would only sign a new one if Arsenal guaranteed he would be number 1. A club like The Arsenal can never guarantee that.

He might have been key in the closing stages of the elongated 2019/20 season, but he had no right to make those sort of demands.

Now 28, he had been at Arsenal for a decade. During that time he had played just 16 Premier League games for us; and a toal of 38 first team appearances.

To demand to be guaranteed a start ahead of Bernd Leno – who had over 400 senior appearances in England and Germany – perhaps showed the arrogance that was bubbling under.

He had been fairly unimpressive on loan and had the reputation of “being a good shot stopper, but has a mistake in him”. A poor mans Wojciech Szczesny

Arsenal did the right thing and told him “no”. They could not guarantee him the number one spot. Especially with so few top level games under his belt.

Martinez probably expected a whole host of clubs at home and abroad to come in for him. But the interest di not materialise.

He ended up joining Aston Villa – who had finished 17th and just one point above the relegation zone.

In his first season at Villa, he showed that he was a decent Premier League season.

Plenty of game winning performances, but he always had the mistakes in him.

The media would hype him up to paint a negative picture around Arsenal. About how we let go one of the leagues best keepers. But he has never really been one of the best in the Premier League.

Playing for a lower team, there is a lot less scrutany on performances.

A mistake for Villa is probably not live on Sky Sports. Will not end up with Gary Neville, Jamie Carragher, et al over analysising a poor performance. Will be hidden away towards the end of MOTD as Linekar, Wright and Shearer dedicate their time to more relevant games.

And will not be spoken about for days after the games on Sky Sports News, TalkSport, newspapers and social media.

I call it the Jussi Jaaskelainen.

If the Finish keeper had a great performance for Bolton, it would be highlighted for weeks. Any poor performance would barely get a mention. This would lead opposition fans to think Jussi was better than what he was.

Martinez is of similar ilk.

A great performance for Villa gets highlighted, a poor one is swept under the carpet.

As he got more game time in the Premier League, he also broke through to the Argentine goal keeper. A fairly easy thing to do when their second choice is a 36 year old who plays for River Plate – and other competition are those that have spent careers warming benches across Europe’s mid-table teams.

And it was for Argentina his hype grew further.

2021 Copa America semi-final hero in a penalty shoot out. MOTM against Brazil in the final.

And then in the recent World Cup, he was once again their penalty hero and (probably) should have been Man of the Match in the final.

But at the final whistle, he showed he was a changed man from 2022. The behaviour could not have been any more different.

From crying on the pitch to mocking opponents and making rude gestures. A classless winner.

The humble hero was dead and instead replaced by an arrogant, egotistical villan.

He has been labelled “the most hated man in France” following his behaviour. There is now talk that Unai Emery plans to replace him at Villa.

And if he does leave Villa, where does he go?

In his mind, it will be Manchester United, Barcelona or Chelsea. The reality is many of the top clubs will see him for what he is – an error prone, inconsistent keeper who can be a match winner one day & lose you a game the next. Throw in the new arrogant characteristics and many will stay well clear.

If he does end up at top team, it will be interesting to see how he does with the increased scrutiny – lets remember his Arsenal performances came with no crowds.

A clearly emotional guy, will he be able to handle the Nou Camp or San Siro faithful getting on his back?

Martinez will probably say “so what, I do not care what anyone thinks” whilst polishing his World Cup winners medal. And he has every right to do that.

But I also imagine in years to come, he will regret his antics in the final. His behaviour. The pictures that will never be forgotten.

Final thought on me is that it is clear Arsenal made the right decision not guaranteeing him first team football. Winning the World Cup does not make you a top player. He has yet to show for Villa that he can perform consistently at the top level.

The final irony is that had he not thrown his toys out of the pram and demanded to leave if he was not first choice, he may well have ended up with our number 1 on his back. But he did not have the stomach for the fight.

If Aaron Ramsdale was Argentinian, he would be their first choice keeper.

Keenos

Eddie the man as Arsenal return with a win

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West Ham were poor. Let’s get that out the way first.

My £20 at 10/1 is looking like a nice little bet right now. After a couple of seasons getting too big for their boots, the Cockney lads from Essex are back to their natural level. Relegation battlers.

Even at 1-nil down, we never looked like we were not going to win. And if Martin Odegaard learns to curl it inside the post rather than outside, we would’ve hit 5.

Man of the moment thought was Eddie Nketiah.

All the noise about Gabriel Jesus’s injury creating a crisis, that it would cost us the league, were silenced in that 90 minute performance.

Some had forgotten that Eddie has scored 5 goals in his previous 8 Premier League starts. The Boxing Day winner made it 6 in 9. Not bad for someone who so many have written off as “not Premier League quality.”

Eddie has always been a natural goal scorer, but in the last 12 months he has also added a better work rate and hold up play to his game. And I think credit to that has to go to Mikel Arteta.

The World Cup was supposed to break our momentum. We were meant to suffer a hangover from it. But we have kept up our 100% winning record and it looked like we had never been away.

From back to front we were excellent- and a special shout out to Ben White.

We now come up to a tricky run.

Brighton is someone we have struggled against in recent times with just 2 wins in our last 10 games.

Newcastle at home is a top of the table clash. And then it is Tottenham (A), Man U (H) and Everton (A).

I won’t begin predicting the points we will get. All that matters is the New Years Eve game against Brighton. We win the league this season but not getting too far ahead of ourselves.

Final shout out to William Saliba.

It was a silly swipe that gave away the penalty, and some poor decision making prior to that which led to him being in the position to need to make a challenge. But he recovered well and had a decent game.

He is still just 21-years-old and only trained twice since the World Cup. It shows Arteta’s faith in him that he was trusted to come straight back in.

Onwards and upwards

Keenos