Arsenal just hit us with a gut punch that feels straight up indefensible: they announced plans to cut at least 60 jobs, and get this, it was just five days after Mikel Arteta inked a massive £20m per year contract. Seriously? The timing of this thing, coming right after Arteta became the Premier League’s highest-paid manager with all that pageantry, is just a brutal contrast that’s got people on everyday wages fearing for their jobs and their mortgages.
The Football Side Is ‘Indulged’ While Everyday Staff Face The Ax
It’s a crazy situation. Arteta’s new deal is one of the most lucrative managerial contracts in football, making him the highest-paid manager in the Premier League, period. And while he’s signing blockbuster deals, regular staff members have been on edge for a while now. Rumors started flying earlier this year when the expensive consultancy firm Boston Consultancy Group (BCG) was brought in to examine the business. What really stings, according to multiple sources, is how the “football side” has been “more and more indulged” throughout all this.
Arteta has total control over the football department, which, get this, accounts for well over half of the club’s outgoings. But that department? Untouched in this round of redundancies. Meanwhile, the club was out here planning a “blockbuster move” for Real Madrid forward Vinicius Jr over the summer, with talk that his massive wages could be made up on image rights alone. Now, the club’s image is straight up sullied, especially when you think about how the wages under threat for some employees wouldn’t even cover two days’ pay for some of Arsenal’s stars. An insider put it plainly: “You’re concentrating on the 10 per cent of the club, where most of the people are on everyday wages.” That’s a tough pill to swallow.
Record Revenue, Blockbuster Plans, And Still They Cut Deep
This isn’t the first time Arsenal has pulled this kind of move, either; they did something similar back in 2020. Another source pointed out that the club would spend years trying to make up the money that went out on contracts for players like Fabio Vieira and Reiss Neilson, saying “Players were on £100,000 a week to be crash test dummies in training.” Look, that might be football, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of staff lives. That’s where it becomes, once again, indefensible.
And it gets even worse. The last accounts showed a club-record revenue of a staggering £691m, and they’re expected to hit £800m next. So this wasn’t some desperate move to save a struggling club. As another insider put it, “this wasn’t necessary and cuts more muscle than fat, potentially bringing more cost than benefit.” The celebratory mood from May’s long-awaited title win is now quickly undercut by this gloom. Arteta just days ago described former executive Ken Friar as “the soul of this football club,” and now it looks like the executive class is ripping that very soul out.
This whole situation just hammers home that feeling of betrayal for a lot of people. Arteta talks about “culture” all the time, but when people on everyday wages are worried about their jobs while the football side is splashing cash and untouched, what kind of culture is that, really? It’s a gut check for the whole club, and honestly, it just feels wrong.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Yahoo Sports.
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