This post originally appeared on our Arsenal blog, but I thought it was worth covering here. There are some mind blowing quotes from Arsene Wenger in Tuesday’s Daily Mirror.

Arsene Wenger is quoted as talking about how much he likes Lille’s £30m-rated Eden Hazard, but he basically says that Hazard is too expensive for Arsenal.

“You should know that each season, it is imperative to show a profit of between fifteen and twenty million pounds. I would add that the purpose of a coach is to always buy at a price he sees fit” Wenger is quoted as saying. “I really like him (Hazard) and, for several reasons: it’s his creative power, his ability to mis-align the opponent, his vision of the game and his consummate skill to address the last pass which make him a very interesting player.”

Wenger’s comments brings up all sort of questions. Arsenal will reportedly announce record profits of up to £60m before the end of the season. What is the use of generating record profits if the team that caused those profits does not improve? And why does Arsenal need to generate £20m profits in the first place? The money stays in the bank. It’s not as it Kroenke or the other Arsenal shareholders are using the club to pay down debt (a la the Glazers) or pay themselves massive dividends.

And finally, the only way that Arsenal can consistently generate a £20m profit every year is if Arsenal FC is a selling club! Bring players into the club when they are young and unknown like Fabregas or Nasri and sell them on big money deals like Arsenal did this summer.

That does not bode well for the future of Robin van Persie or the likelihood of Arsenal being competitive and willing trophies in the coming years.

Chelsea continue to hemorrhage money after announcing a loss of £67.7million for the financial year ending June 30, 2011.

That is only a slight drop decrease from the loss of £70.9million in 2010, as Chelsea struggles to fall in line with UEFA’s new financial fair play rules.

Since Roman Abramovich took over Chelsea, the blues have now lost a combined £620million.

Transfer fees were a main contributor to the loss, while the club was able to declare a record group turnover of £222.3million.

The figure stood at £205.8million last year, and increased thanks to higher receipts from the Champions League together with a rise in income from the central Barclays Premier League television contract relating to overseas broadcasting.

Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck told the club’s official website, www.chelseafc.com:

“The club is focused on complying with the requirements of UEFA’s financial fair play regulations while maintaining its ability to challenge for major trophies. We would expect this to be reflected in our results for the current financial year.”

Chelsea chief executive Ron Gourlay added:

“Achieving a record level of turnover is satisfying given the economic background against which we are operating.”

This is pure spin from Buck and Gourlay. Yes about half the loss is due to Chelsea paying off Carlo Ancelotti and his staff and also compensating Porto for Andre Villas-Boas and his coaching staff.

But the £67.7m loss only takes into account 20% of the £71m paid out last January for Fernando Torres and David Luiz. And it does not include the £65m spent on Juan Mata, Romelu Lukaku, Raul Meireles, Oriol Romeu and Thibaud Courtois last summer.

I cannot see how Chelsea can get into line with UEFA’s FFP rules unless they have a massive clearing out of the side.

Fulham Football Club today announced a record profit of £5.4m and a record net profit of £4.8m for the year ended 30 June 2011. The Cottagers have also revealed a record revenue of £77.1m for the last season.

Fulham recorded a profit of £5.4m, before interest and taxation, and enjoyed a 4.9% increase in attendance, which saw Craven Cottage secure a 98% occupancy figure for the seaso.

Fulham’s Chairman, Mohamed Al Fayed was delighted at the results saying:

“The Club has made great strides in recent years, and this excellent set of financial results is just reward for our progress. As always, I am determined to ensure the Club moves in the right direction whilst remaining true to our history, heritage and past traditions.”

In order to continue to grow revenue, Fulham has announced plans to increase capacity at Craven Cottage to 30,000. The stadium has been Fulham’s home since 1896 and would be subject to wider facility improvements, as well as the Riverside Stand development.

Al Fayed added:

“The announcement of our plans to redevelop the Riverside Stand, whilst opening up the Riverwalk for the benefit of the community, is further proof that my ambition for this football club remains resolute.”

Manchester City today losses of £194.9 million for the financial year 2010-11, the highest such figures ever posted by an English football club.

The £195m consisted of a net loss of £160.5m and £34.4m to write off player contracts. These are incredible numbers and City tried hard today to put a positive spin on them:

“Our losses, which we predicted as part of our accelerated investment strategy, will not be repeated on this scale in the future,” said chief operating officer Graham Wallace.

City fans will point out that the clubs overall turnover was £153.2m, which broke the £150m barrier for the first time. That £153.2m is only £10m less than Spurs made in the same period and does not take into consideration the £35m-a-year sponsorship deal with Etihad Airlines, or the riches that come with playing in the Champions League.

Yes City’s revenue gains are impressive but what cannot be overlooked is the fact that wages are out of control. In 2008-09 Man City‘s wage bill was £82m. In 2009-10 it rose to £133m and now is at £174m. Yes Manchester City’s wage bill is more than it turnover! With these numbers City have past Chelsea as having the highest wage bill in England.

Most financial experts believe that clubs need to keep its wages at around 50% of its turnover. Since City’s wages will only go up, not, down,the club needs to grow its revenues from £153.2m to around £350m which is more than even Manchester United bring in (£334.1million).

Luckily for City these figures will not be taken into account used as part of Uefa’s Financial Fair Play regulations as they fall outside the accounting window.

In a move that is sure to further infuriate the Toon Army over his ownership of the club, Newcastle owner Mike Ashley has ended 119 years of Newcastle United history and heritage by re-naming St James’ Park the Sports Direct Arena.

Newcastle Chairman Derek Llambias says that Newcastle needed to sell the naming rights to St James Park if its wants to compete with the top clubs in the Premier League:

“Roman Abramovich has more money than God but Chelsea are out there trying to re-brand Stamford Bridge to bring in even more money” said Llambias. “So if it’s good enough for Chelsea, it has to be good enough for Newcastle United. We have started the season well and we want that to continue. But to compete with the Manchester Uniteds, Manchester Citys and Chelseas we need to make sure we bring in every penny possible because football’s a very expensive game. The fans may criticise this but those will be the same fans who want us to buy more players and spend more and more money. Let’s get this clear — we want to buy more players, we want to invest more into the club. But to do that we need the money not just to buy players but to commit to paying their wages for four to five years. That’s a huge commitment. So re-branding the stadium like this is one way to meet that sort of commitment. I honestly believe when people see the branding around the stadium they will be impressed. They’ll realise what a valuable platform the stadium is — and so will potential sponsors. We are hoping that when worldwide brands see Sports Direct emblazoned around the ground they will think ‘that could be our name up there’. That’s the point of this exercise. “Right now it’s Sports Direct that pays for everything we do and people should respect that. And I have worked tirelessly to bring in new sponsors and partners over the past 18 months but all our efforts have failed. It’s understandable because there’s a world-wide recession going on. There’s no money in the North-East right now — there’s very little money anywhere in the UK or Europe for that matter. But if this new branding helps attract a big-name sponsor to come in and work in partnership with us, to invest in us — well it would be a massive boost to helping us achieve our big ambitions for this great football club.”

The difference between what Newcastle did and what Chelsea are talking about doing, is that Chelsea are insisting that “Stamford Bridge” be part of the new stadium name. Much as Liverpool has insisted that any remaining of their stadium has to include “Anfield. Those clubs want to preserve their history while Mike Ashley is just peeing all over Newcastle‘s.

What I don’t understand is the timing. Newcastle have made a terrific start to the season and their is a feel-good spirit about the club and the city at the moment. Coming out if the international break Newcastle play Man City (a), Man United (a) and Chelsea (h). A really tough set of fixtures and you would think that Ashley would want to toon army behind the team during this next three matches, not protesting about his ownership.

For the first time Sportingintelligence has published the average basic weekly wages, division by division, of footballers in England for the past 25 years. And it makes fascinating reading.

One thing to keep in mind as you are reading the post is that these wage numbers represent basic pay; wages typically increase by 50 to 100% with appearance money and bonuses.

In 1984-85, according to the PFA’s data, the average basic wage in the First Division, which was the top division in England then, was £24,934 a year. Bonuses would have pushed that wage up to around £36,000, or about three and a half times the average working man’s salary at the time.

In 2009-10, the average basic Premier League wage was £1.16m and the average take-home pay was £1.76m. Top division footballers now earn 46 times as much as they did in 1984-85 while the average worker earns about three times as much.

The jumps in Premier League wages can be directly tied to the growth in TV money. For example the biggest increases in wages took place between 1996-97 and 1997-98 when a new TV deal kicked in.

The incredible growth in wages in the Premier League however is not trickling down to players in the lower leagues. Twenty-five years ago the gap between wages in the top division and the fourth division was only three times as much. Today Premier League wages are 30 times higher than those in the fourth division. as much.

According to the PFA document, the average annual basic salary in the Championship in 2009-10 was £211,068, in League One it was £73,320 and in League Two it was£38,844.

There is no doubt that the Premier League is the most popular league in the world as the latest research estimates that the Premier League matches attracted a staggering 4.7BILLION TV viewers last season.

Figures released by the Sport+Markt group in Germany show the tremendous appeal of the Premier League around the world. SHere are some of the amazing numbers:

Numbers of Viewers:

• 70% of ALL football fans worldwide are now watching the English game
• TV coverage of the Premier League reached 643million homes last season, a rise of 11pc over the previous season.
• 3.9bn fans watched a game a home last season
• In the UK alone, 629m viewers watched live or highlighted match last season, with a further 761m across the rest of Europe.
• 777m fans watched a game in a pub or bar somewhere in the world

Worldwide Appeal

• 1.3bn viewers tuned in to watch a match last season in the Asia and Oceania region
• 64pc of all Chinese fans now support a Premier League club
• Half the football followers in the USA have a favourite English team.

Andrew Walsh, the Sport+Markt head of international affairs, said:

“The explanation for these remarkable figures lies largely in the redistribution of international rights for the start of the new three-year broadcast term last year. One main driver of the rise was the switch of the League’s broadcast rights in China from pay TV over to terrestrial coverage. That has burst open the floodgates in terms of the Premier League’s popularity in the world’s biggest and fastest-growing market.”

A Premier League spokesman said:

“Our international fan base and success is helping develop English football at all levels, something we should all be pleased about. Whether they are at the ground in person or watching all around the world on TV, fans know what they will get from a Premier League game. They’ll see some of the world’s best talent in thrilling matches played at packed stadiums.”

 

Ivan Gazidis spoke on a variety of issues at a meeting of sports business leaders in London earlier this week and he made some interesting comments about the Arsenal Way.

First Gazidis said:

“We as a Club are operating in a self-sustaining way and are concerned about value. It may frustrate everybody but we have to be.”

Then later, talking about the Gunners owner, silent Stan Kroenke, Gazidis added:

“[Stan Kroenke] is very supportive of the self-sustaining model and Arsène Wenger,”

So two references to Arsenal’s self-sustaining model there from Gazidis. A quick look at a dictionary defines self-sustaining

“as maintaining or able to maintain oneself or itself by independent effort”

which is Arsenal’s case means that the football operations run at a profit. The revenue in from ticket sales, media, commercial partnerships is greater than the expenses out for transfers and players wages.Basic acconting. But does that mean that the Gunners are now a selling club?

Since Arsenal have moved into the Emirates, transfer funds have been limited and Arsene Wenger has funded purchases with the sales of players like Kolo Toure and Adebayor. Here is a breakdown on Arsenal’s net transfer spent heading into this summer’s transfer window (data from Talksport.co.uk).

NET PROFIT ON REPORTED PLAYER TRANSFER FEES BY ARSENAL SINCE 2004: £20.56m*

2004/05 net spend: £2.55m profit
Players in: Arturo Lupoli £0.2m, Manuel Almunia £0.5m, Vito Mannone £0.35m, Emmanuel Eboue £1m
Players out: Giovanni van Bronckhorst £2m, Martin Keown Free, Ray Parlour Free, Kanu Free, Francis Jeffers £2.6m, Igor Stepanovs nominal, Sylvain Wiltord Free, Rami Shabaan Free.

2005/06 net spend: £5m loss
Players in: Nicklas Bendtner undisclosed, Alexander Hleb £11.2m, Vassiriki Diaby £2m, Emmanuel Adebayor £7m, Theo Walcott £5m, Mart Poom undisclosed
Players out: Stuart Taylor undisclosed, Jermaine Pennant £3m, Patrick Viera £13.7m, David Bentley £3m

2006/07 net spend: £0.7m loss
Players in: Tomas Rosicky £6.8m, Fran Merida free, Alexandre Song £1m, William Gallas swap, Denilson £3.4m
Players out: Robert Pires free, Sol Campbell free, Pascal Cygan £2m, Ashley Cole £5m (swap), Anthony Stokes £2m, Lauren £0.5m, Sebastian Larsson £1m

2007/08 net spend: £19.9m profit
Players in: Lukasz Fabianski £2m, Eduardo £7.5m, Bakary Sagna £6m, Lassana Diarra £2m, Luke Freeman £0.2m
Players out: Fabrice Muamba £4m, Jeremie Alaidiere £2m, Thierry Henry £16.1m, Arturo Lupoli free, Fredrik Ljungberg £3m, Jose Antonio Reyes £6m, Matthew Connolly £1m, Lassana Diarra £5.5m

2008/09 net spend: £20.75m loss
Players in: Aaron Ramsey £5m, Samir Nasri £15.8m, Amaury Bischoff free, Mikael Silvestre £0.75m, Andrei Arshavin £15m
Players out: Jens Lehmann free, Mathieu Flamini free, Alexander Hleb £11.8m, Gilberto Silva £1m, Justin Hoyte £3m

2009/10 net spend: £31m profit
Players in: Thomas Vermaelen £10m
Players out: Emmanuel Adebayor £25m, Kolo Toure £16m

2010/11 net spend: £6.44m loss
Players in: Kyle Ebecilio £0.58m, Laurent Koscielny £9.7m, Sebastian Squillaci £3.3m
Players out: Eduardo £6.34m, Jay Simpson £0.8m

Still not convinced that Arsenal is a selling club? Well look at the data from Sportingintelligence. After the sale of Samir Nasir to Manchester City, and before Arsenal’s panic spending free on deadline day, Arsenal had a net transfer income of £4,224,000 over the last decade.

Only Blackburn, with net income of £45.8m in the same period have also made money among the Premier League’s 20 current clubs.

So is this the way that Arsenal will go in the future? Will the Gunners sell Van Persie, Walcott or Song next summer in order to free up funds for the club to sign new players because that it was it sounds like Gazidis is saying.

They have two of the richest football owners in the world, so it should not be a surprise that Manchester City and Chelsea were once again the big spenders in the summer transfer market.

Manchester City spent well over 120 million euros last summer, and for the second year in a row, the club was the biggest spender, albeit only a comparitively modest 92.2 million euros this time around. Almost half of that expenditure was dedicated to one player int he form of Sergio Aguero. City also snapped up Samir Nasri, Stefan Savic and Gael Glichy, while Owen Hargreaves arrived on a free transfer on Deadline Day.

Europe’s big five leagues, Bundesliga, La Liga, Ligue 1, Premier League and Serie A, spent over 1.6 billion euros this summer on players. It is no surprise that the Premier League easily outdistanced all the other leagues.

Manchester City spent well over 120 million euros last summer, and for the second year in a row, the club was the biggest spender, albeit only a comparitively modest 92.2 million euros this time around. Almost half of that expenditure was dedicated to one player in the form of Sergio Aguero. City also spent big for Samir Nasri, Stefan Savic and Gael Glichy.

The second biggest spender was Chelsea. After a quiet summer last year by Roman Abramovich’s standards, the Blues brought in the likes of Romelu Lukaku, Juan Mata, Lucas Piazon, Thibaut Curtoius, Oriol Romeu and the deadline signing of Raul Meireles and Abramovich tries to make his aging squad younger and more athletic.

Defending champion Manchester United needed a replacement for Edwin van der Sar, and the  club splashed out 20 million euros to sign David de Gea. Ashley Young and Phil Jones were the other key acquisitions.

Liverpool‘s American owner John Henry got his first taste of football’s summer transfer window and didn’t shy away from spending as the Merseysiders spent 65.2 million euros to bring in Stewart Downing, Jordan Henderson, Charlie Adam, Sebastian Coates and Jose Enrique.

And then of course there’s Arsenal. The club suffered the shock loss of Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri and things just went from bad to worse on the pitch. But last-minute deals saw it sign Mikel Arteta, Per Mertesacker, Andre Santos, Park Chi-Young, and Yossi Benayoun on loan to join Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Gervinho, the other new arrivals.

Elsewhere, Newcastle United brought in Yoann Cabaya and David Santon, Sunderland strengthened with Connor Wickham, John O’Shea and Wes Brown, Fulham pulled off a deal to sign Bryan Ruiz and John Arne Riise, while Tottenham only had Brad Friedel, Emmanuel Adebayor and Scott Parker to show for its summer efforts.

Manchester United today posted record operating profits of £110.9million for the year ended June 30, 2011.

The club have also recorded a record revenue of £334.1million, an increase of £45million from last year and passing £300million for the first time. That £334.1million in revenue beat the previous record of £313m that Arsenal had previously announced.

United’s gross debt stands at £458.9m and the club paid £51.2m in interest payments to bond holders in 2010-11, equivalent to 46 per cent of annual profits.

Interest payments and other costs such as amortisation of player contracts and depreciation reduced the pre-tax profit to £29.7m.

The commercial growth saw cash reserves boosted to £150.6m at the end of the financial year, reducing the club’s net debt to £308.3m, the lowest since the Glazer’s bought the club in 2005. The Glazers also bought back £63.8m in bonds issued in the 2009 re-financing.

United, having struggled to sell corporate boxes last year, have also enjoyed an increase in matchday turnover from £100.2million to £108.6million.

The rise in turnover was driven by a £22m (37%) increase in commercial revenue, which exceeded the £100m barrier for the first time at £103m. Commercial growth was driven by the first year of the new shirt sponsorship deal with AON, and will increase again in 2011-12 following the £10m-a-year training kit sponsorship agreed by DHL last month.

While turnover increased so did costs, with increased player wages and bonuses contributing to a £35m increase in operating expenses, which rose from £185.2m in 2009-10 to £220.5m in the year to June 2011.

Staff costs rose by £21.2m, £9.7m of which was paid in bonuses and the remaining £11.5m in increased wages.

For an in-depth look at United’s financial numbers check out Andersred, the best source of United’s financial data online.