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Arsenal in talks over controversial £80m off-pitch deal as Paris Saint-Germain twist confirmed
T-minus one week until Arsenal face Paris Saint-Germain in the first leg of a Champions League semi-final tie that will shape the club’s season both on the pitch and in the balance sheet.
After last week’s historic victory over Real Madrid, Arsenal have already claimed around £100m in prize money from UEFA.
That means they have effectively covered Declan Rice’s transfer fee in 12 Champions League matches this season – if you add in matchday income, you can cover his £250,000-a-week wages for three years too.
This is the kind of money that Arsenal had been missing until they returned to Europe’s premier competition last season after a six-season absence. It’s football finance’s golden goose.
Their lack of Champions League football impacted every item on the balance sheet. Matchday, commercial and media income all suffered.
But 2023-24 saw the Gunners catch up with their Premier League rivals in terms of revenue having spent several seasons hanging on to their coattails.
With a successful team on the pitch, a strong commercial strategy and plans to expand the Emirates Stadium, there’s no reason why Arsenal can’t be one of the world’s richest teams by revenue.
In the financial year just gone, the Stan Kroenke-owned side surpassed Liverpool, Tottenham and Chelsea to climb to 7th place in the Deloitte Football Money League, which ranks clubs by turnover.
Increasingly, the frontier in Premier League football finance is commercial income.
For too long, Arsenal have lagged behind in this category and, despite a big rise last season, they still generated the least from sponsorship and retail last season.
However, the North Londoners are odds-on to further eat up the ground on their rivals in the so-called Big Six.
- READ MORE: Arsenal’s William Saliba reveals the club he grew up dreaming of playing for since the age of six
Arsenal still in sleeve sponsor talks, Paris Saint-Germain strike new deal
Typically, the three biggest assets a club can sell are their kit deal, front-of-shirt, and shirt sleeve deals.
In Arsenal’s case, their front-of-shirt rights are tied in with their stadium naming rights. Emirates pay £50m per season. Adidas meanwhile are Arsenal’s technical partner and pay £60m annually.
The Gunners’ sleeve sponsor is Visit Rwanda. It’s a deal that has courted much controversy since it was first inked in 2018 and extended three years later.
For one, Rwandan president Paul Kagame is a big Arsenal fan and is said to have been the driving force behind the deal, leading to suggestions that the deal is a vanity project.
The Rwandan tourist board dispute those claims, but the Visit Rwanda partnership has also been divisive on ethical grounds due to the East African nation’s foreign and domestic policy.
Significantly, their deal with Arsenal – which is worth around £10m per year – is up for renewal at the end of the season. Some fans in North London too have called for the end of the deal.
There have been similar noises at Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich, both of whom also have partnerships with Visit Rwanda.
However, the pressure has not proved decisive in either case as both PSG and Bayern have renewed their deals in the last few days, prompting speculation that Arsenal could do the same.
How much can Arsenal get from Visit Rwanda deal or another sleeve sponsor?
Some reports have suggested that Arsenal have not been swayed by the controversy and, if the price is right, are ready to renegotiate with Visit Rwanda.
On the other hand, football finance insider Lukasz Basczek has relayed that the Gunners are looking for a far more lucrative deal than previous arrangement.
At an upper limit of £20m-a-year, a new sleeve deal would be worth £80m over the course of the suggested contract length.
It would also be among the most lucrative sleeve sponsorships in the Premier League.
Stan Kroenke has big decision to make over MLS team
On the other side of the Atlantic, Kroenke’s MLS franchise Colorado Rapids are set to take part in a vote this summer whether to move their league to the European calendar.
Kroenke is not particularly popular with Rapids fans, who have accused the 77-year-old of neglecting much needed infrastructure upgrades at the club and a lack of investment in the team.
The motivation to move the MLS calendar is to the bring transfer market in the United States into alignment with its counterpart in Europe.
With this, the view is that MLS teams will be better able to leverage market opportunities and attract a higher calibre of player.
For Kroenke, that may mean a day of reckoning if other teams loosen the purse strings and leave the Rapids, Arsenal’s sister club, behind.