Arteta suggests Arsenal may need to explore multi-club model
01/04/2025 04:59 AM
Mikel Arteta says that restrictions on how young players can be recruited by Premier League clubs means Arsenal may have to explore a multi-club ownership model – along the lines of Man City and Chelsea.
As it stands, English clubs are unable to sign players from abroad until they turn 18, a significant change from the past when talents like Cesc Fabregas, Hector Bellerin, Gael Clichy and others arrived to become first team fixtures.
The Arsenal manager was asked if it would be helpful for the Gunners to have a club in Europe to ‘park’ young talent in, as a way of getting around these post-Brexit regulations, he said, “That’s something that a lot of clubs have at the moment.
“So that restriction obviously in the country has provoked what many other clubs have now, like sister clubs or multi-club systems.
“So looking ahead in the future is something basically to explore, because obviously with the actual system it’s very, very difficult.”
Arteta insisted this was something that had to be decided at board level, by owners KSE, who would have to figure out if this was something they wanted to do, and how it should be done.
Pressed on whether or not he’d be involved in that, Arteta continued, “My involvement is in the team and the squads, and full trust in what the club has to do there is for them to decide.
“If they want my opinion at some moment, obviously I’m more than happy to, but my focus is on the team.”
We’ll have to wait and see how this plays out. For many, the multi-club model is one which benefits only the biggest, richest clubs at the expense of so-called ‘smaller clubs’ – including the ones who are taken under the umbrella. Look at how 777 Partners model left a mountain of debts, and the possibility of exploiting players and financial regulations is impossible to ignore.
Others may view it as a necessarily evil, that if everyone else is doing it and gaining an advantage, Arsenal may have to do it to keep up. Let’s see.
The Spaniard had earlier spoken about his time at La Masia, the famed Barcelona Academy where young players live and train, which has produced some incredible players down the years.
From Arteta’s group, the likes of Andres Iniesta, Carles Puyol, Thiago Motta, and Victor Valdes all graduated, and for the Arsenal boss the quality of the players produced was down to the environment in which they were educated in football.
“To replicate that here is impossible,” he said. “You cannot do it.
“It’s the most unique environment that I have seen in my life, the most competitive, the most inspiring and the most, probably, professional environment that any club that I have seen or academy that I have seen that replicates a first team environment at 14, 15 years old.
“From that room we were 32 players there. I think 29 of them made it to the highest level. The six that they share a room with me, they were legends in the football world.
“That’s unheard of. So there is something special there. That’s not a coincidence and they’ve done it for decades now.”
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