All hail Arsene Wenger! For all who do not know Mr. Wenger, he is the manager (coach in America) of Arsenal Futbol Club in London, England. Arsenal is in the English Premier League (you know.). Does Manchester United or Chelsea ring a bell anyone? Well, Arsenal is in the same league and just as good. I'm mentioning this in my blog because he is one of the best coaches in the world. Let me put this in perspective to Americans and their favorite pastime baseball, the Atlanta Braves is a prime example. The Braves are known for using the minor leagues to develop their young players and then slowly promoting them as they become seasoned. This is all so in the end the Braves don't have to pay big salaries. Arsenal is run the same way. Mr. Arsene Wenger finds talent from all over the world and makes them world class players. And here's the best part, other clubs come and pay massive amounts of money for these players. This cycle is never ending. And during all this Arsenal is one of the top clubs in Europe.
So where is this blog going? Arsene's contract was due to expire at the end of this season, but as of today he signed a new three year contract worth about four million pounds per year. With a young squad currently tied for first in the standings, this is a moment in paradise considering all that has happened in the past couple of months. The past couple of years rich, bored billionaires have invested millions of dollars by buying these soccer teams in England. The first one I think was Russian Roman Abramovich, who bought Chelsea. Here's a history lesson of how Abramovich got rich (real quickly). Apparently the story goes that a train loaded with oil headed to some part of Russia (moscow?) left during the night and the next morning it had disappeared along with its oil; and, the rest is history as they say. Here's a link to his biography if you want to read it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Abramovich So on with other rich billionaires who include Manchester United American owner Aaron Glazer (also owns Tampa Bay Bucs) and former and currently exiled Prime Minister Thaksin from Thailand owns Manchester City. As result, because Arsenal is such a profitable business, billionaire all over have made bids to buy the majority shares of Arsenal. This has cause trouble in the board room for Arsenal but it seems they might have survived. additionally, the face of the franchise (as Americans would say it), Thierry Henry left to play at Barcelona. It's like Kobe leaving L.A.; you just can't imagine it. Thus with all this chaos forming over the club, the players have presevered. And the future for the next three years looks brighter than ever. If you want to catch a glimpse of Arsenal here's a link. They're wearing red jerseys. http://goaltube.org/modules.php?name=Video_Stream&page=watch&id=822&d=1
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
This was really interesting. I love soccor, and baseball, but I'd never heard about the use of the minors to keep salaries low. I have noticed, though, that the Cards seem to send up/send down players a lot. Is that for the same reason, do you think, or are the Braves just know for that?
I mis-spelled soccer. Sorry.
Soccer! I used to have a friend that was really into soccer, but I'm not sure which team. Anyways, that was really cool since we usually don't hear about soccer.
This is in reply for professor wendy's question. If you look at the payroll of the cardinals, you'll find that they have one of the higher payrolls in the majors. The braves's payroll is much lower but they still always compete. Arsenal is the same way. If I'm not mistaken, the value of Arsenal's starting eleven is worth 30 million pounds which sounds alot until you hear that team like manchester united just shelled between 60-70 million pounds over the summer transfer market for three players!
Ever since we talked about politics that one day in class I keep relating it to everything. And you really showed how it is portrayed in soccer. I hadn't heard of the minors being used though. I wish soccer was bigger in the States, though.
Oh, and Beckham is really fine.
Post a Comment