Was building a new stadium the right move for Arsenal?

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Was building a new stadium the right move for Arsenal?

Postby Clubbs » Wed Apr 19, 2017 2:20 am

What are your thoughts on the building of the Emirates stadium? Has atmosphere been lost? Was it the right move? Or should Highbury have been expanded?

Here is a link to the survey. Thanks in advance. https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/8ZKSMJY

This is for my dissertation at university and looks at whether it is more beneficial for football clubs to expand and redevelop their current stadiums such as Liverpool and Man United have done. Or construct a new stadium such as Arsenal, and soon to be Chelsea and Tottenham.

People over the age of 18+ only. The project has been approved ethical clearance by the UCFB ethical committee. Reference Number: UCFBREC67

Thanks in advance for all those who take park.

Feel free to talk about it in the comments.
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Re: Was building a new stadium the right move for Arsenal?

Postby starmandb » Thu Apr 20, 2017 2:31 pm

Yes
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Re: Was building a new stadium the right move for Arsenal?

Postby Cripps » Thu Apr 20, 2017 2:33 pm

Yes but its not been used the right way
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Re: Was building a new stadium the right move for Arsenal?

Postby UFGN » Thu Apr 20, 2017 2:39 pm

Gee I just love filling out surveys and answering questionnaires to help randoms with their degrees

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Re: Was building a new stadium the right move for Arsenal?

Postby Marsbar100 » Thu Apr 20, 2017 4:40 pm

Yes it was essential
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Re: Was building a new stadium the right move for Arsenal?

Postby Santi » Thu Apr 20, 2017 8:31 pm

Turns out no.


It's value now has very little significance which made the timing of the move terrible, we should've been doing it about now as the impact would be 0.
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Re: Was building a new stadium the right move for Arsenal?

Postby EliteKiller » Fri Apr 21, 2017 12:04 am

Yes of course it was - however the way it was financed was about as wrong as it could be - selling our soul to the Emirates for a fraction of the value? housing development at the bottom of the property cycle? long term bonds when interest rates were at the peak of the cycle? - of course that's all easy to say in hindsight ....

However the fact remains that the stubborn morons who run our club refused to admit that by 2004 the world had changed - instead of blowing the EPL away with massive squad funding, at a time when we could have dominated not only the EPL but Europe, we obsessed about debts which were comparatively small 'in case times changed' .... frankly that was cowardice in the extreme, it was obvious to a blind man on the moon that football income was going to explode, of course no one predicted the massive increases we've seen but even the pessimists saw a doubling of income (it's in fact gone up by a factor of 10 in 12 years) we could have invested +50m into our squad, the best squad we've ever had, for two, three, or even four summers in a row ... what could that have won us?

Dien wanted to do that, and in the end our failure to 'push on' led to him leaving in 2007 - surely one of the worst day in our club's history

We were left with a feckin' accountant running the football team ... and haven't we paid for that ....

Utd took on debt five times ours, and won over a dozen trophies, Chelsea took on over a billion in debt and won the Champions League, City, Liverpool, and now Spuds are borrowing heavily for stadiums yet they are still investing in their squads ...

Meanwhile we glorify in '5th richest Club in the World' whilst failing over and over again on the pitch ... feckin' great if you're a shareholder, not so much if you're a fan ......

Was it the right move - 100% yes - was it fecked up massively, sadly that's also a massive yes ......
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Re: Was building a new stadium the right move for Arsenal?

Postby Cripps » Fri Apr 21, 2017 2:58 am

When the stadium was being planned and built and all the crap about us challenging the big clubs was said, the board and Wenger probably thought every big club in the world would stand still whilst we pay off the stadium and prices for the top players would remain in the 40-50m range

As ever, our inept leaders show no clever thinking. We are stuck years behind the big clubs.
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Re: Was building a new stadium the right move for Arsenal?

Postby Zedie » Fri Apr 21, 2017 9:07 am

Its hard to predict the future, in terms of economic trends and what today would be like financially compared to where we were when we green lit the stadium.

People are pointing to the spurs build right now and how much less risk and additional income they have to cover the construction, but honestly, right now and the next two years is probably the worst time to do a major project such as building a stadium. Or anything else for that matter.

Ok, they've defo agreed a build price upfront, but the way our economy is right now, the affects of Brexit longterm and the labour force situation in the construction industry has a lot of big building firms worried.

Things could easily go tits up.
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Re: Was building a new stadium the right move for Arsenal?

Postby Zedie » Fri Apr 21, 2017 9:11 am

Also, there's no point equating whether or not we should have built the stadium due to the recent success or lack there of.

It was inevitable and it's good that we've nearly paid it off. Success will come, maybe not with Wenger, but with others and this stadium will be standing and getting double the amount of fans in long after he's retired, while your sons and daughters go to watch their team.
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Re: Was building a new stadium the right move for Arsenal?

Postby Schlandi » Sat Apr 22, 2017 8:13 am

Back then the idea was shit and from todays point of view it was one of the worst timeframes they could have used to buy a new stadium. Arsenal wasted a lot of resources on all fronts instead they could have strengthen the strong team back then and became a major branding which would offer much better sponsoring deals aso today. Also with the money every PL team gets from the TV contracts today they could have paid the stadium with a blink of an eye and don't tell me you couldn't have any idea that the TV money pool would raise significantly back then. Clubs like Tottenham who are (re)building their stadium right now have done great business compared to the Arsenal board.
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Re: Was building a new stadium the right move for Arsenal?

Postby Angelito » Sat Apr 22, 2017 1:21 pm

Going by this thread, we have lots of future Fobes 400 CEOs here.

It was a miscalculation and an ill-timed move, but nobody could have remotely predicted this boom in Premier League money more than 17 years ago. Arsenal FC had been toying with the idea since 1996. It wasn't until 2000 of course that we started building the Emirates.

I always speak of hindsight and yes, it's 20-20. With the Emirates move, that part is true as well. Moving to the Emirates was a wise move, but we did sacrifice a few League titles and a couple of CLs to fund this move, and looking at where we are today--it's painful how we misjudged the financial dynamics of football back then.

Regardless, we had to move/expand someday. We mayn't have capitalized in the last many years, or under Wenger, but in the future, the move will only prove to be worthwhile.
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Re: Was building a new stadium the right move for Arsenal?

Postby Santi » Sat Apr 22, 2017 2:52 pm

We started the build in 2004 just fyi
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Re: Was building a new stadium the right move for Arsenal?

Postby starmandb » Sun Apr 23, 2017 9:57 am

Mesüt wrote:We started the build in 2004 just fyi

It took wenger 5 years to buy a shovel?
Woke up one morning and thought better get started on this
Shouting any of you c**** helping?
It was the right move
It remains the right move
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Re: Was building a new stadium the right move for Arsenal?

Postby EliteKiller » Sun Apr 23, 2017 11:11 am

Angelito wrote:Going by this thread, we have lots of future Fobes 400 CEOs here.

It was a miscalculation and an ill-timed move, but nobody could have remotely predicted this boom in Premier League money more than 17 years ago. Arsenal FC had been toying with the idea since 1996. It wasn't until 2000 of course that we started building the Emirates.

I always speak of hindsight and yes, it's 20-20. With the Emirates move, that part is true as well. Moving to the Emirates was a wise move, but we did sacrifice a few League titles and a couple of CLs to fund this move, and looking at where we are today--it's painful how we misjudged the financial dynamics of football back then.

Regardless, we had to move/expand someday. We mayn't have capitalized in the last many years, or under Wenger, but in the future, the move will only prove to be worthwhile.


I think the 'growth' could easily have been anticipated if not the 'boom' ... but that's a mute point .... we could and should have restructured our debt in 2004/5/6/7/8 as the position with TV revenue became very clear .... even the worst Forbes CEO should be able to understand that when all your competitors are leveraging their debt to 30/40% or in Utd's case over 50%, mainly to increase cash flow and purchase new and better assets (players), then to do nothing can only mean you get left behind.

Any half decent CEO would also recognise that the long-term naming and sponsorship deals, which were understandably struck for short term gain, should never be repeated once they had proven utterly disastrous deals when compared to our rivals much shorter contracts ...

Clearly our 'Forbes 500 CEO' can't grasp risk and reward instead always opting for the safe guaranteed but relatively low returns ... in football sadly that makes you non-competitive and wins you nothing ....
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