Arsène Wenger — House of Commons, 2018-05-15
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Huw William Merriman (Conservative, Centre-right): There is indeed no cure for it, Mr Speaker. We can only hope I am delighted to be opening the debate. I want to focus on a number of contributions that Arsène Wenger has made in different spheres. First, I want to touch on his vast input in making the game the financial export that it is for this country. While it is true that we do not export as much as we once did, football is one of the industries that we export exceptionally well. I believe that it is the fastest-growing export across the globe. A recent study revealed that the annual revenue from Premier League clubs had hit almost £5 billion, double the combined total revenue from the leagues in Italy and Spain. Premier League clubs contributed £2.4 billion to the Exchequer, and are responsible for the creation of 100,000 jobs in this country. The strength of their appeal abroad is demonstrated not just by the £3.2 billion of rights sold overseas, but by what will happen in the next three years. China, for example, is bidding 14 times the previous value I observed the strength of this export last weekend, when I was in the small African country of Djibouti—the 14th poorest country in the globe, where there is terrible poverty. The young boys and girls whom I met were not only kicking a football around with great joy, but wearing the shirts of the premiership clubs more than those of any other league. In particular, they were wearing a lot of Arsenal strips. I was there with UNICEF, supporting Soccer Aid in the work it does in countries like Djibouti With his brand of attacking football, there was a tripling of our global fan base across the world, and I would argue that a large part of the success and the money that has been put into the Exchequer is down to Arsène Wenger. I am delighted that the Leader of the Opposition, another great Arsenal fan, has joined us, and I would be happy, if it is not against convention, to take an intervention from him Arsène Wenger has also contributed to the changing culture and behaviour within sport. It was put very well by one of our former players, and a great hero of mine, Ray Parlour, who revealed the full extent of the horror of the once notorious drinking culture at Arsenal in the following way: "I’ll always remember the first pre-season tour with Arsène Wenger. New French lads had come into the team. We worked our socks off and at the end of the trip Wenger said we could all go out. We went straight down to the pub and the French lads went to the coffee shop. I’ll always remember the moment Steve Bould went up to the bar and ordered 35 pints for five of us. After we left the bar"— I am amazed he can still remember this— "we spotted all the French lads in the coffee shop and they were sitting around smoking, I thought how are we going to win the league this year? We’re all drunk and they’re all smoking, and we ended up winning the double that year." Much of the reason for this end-of-season transformation is summed up by another Arsenal great, Lee Dixon, who said of Arsène Wenger: "There is no doubt he changed the face of English football. He was the first. It was all him. His legacy is not only Arsenal based. It is English football-based because of where the game was when he came in and how clubs and players operated. The physiology side of the game, the social side, training—he came in and ripped up the handbook. Everybody said, ‘Who is this fella?’ and the next minute they were all copying him The advancements in terms of science and facilities and all the support available for elite athletes is testament to him. I truly believe he pushed the button to start all of that. It is easy to lose track of the fact he was the great innovator." And so he was The third point is how Arsène Wenger built our club in the modern era and balanced its books, rather than using the largesse of petrodollars and oligarchs to do so. In 2004, Arsenal not only won the third of Arsène Wenger’s premiership titles but, as we have mentioned, went the entire season unbeaten. Never one to rest on their laurels, Arsène Wenger and the Arsenal hierarchy recognised that to close the gap on the richer clubs around us, the club had to increase its stadium revenue. Highbury, which gave me the greatest pleasure over my years as an Arsenal fan sitting at the clock end, had a capacity of only 38,000, half that enjoyed by our rivals Manchester United in 2006 at Old Trafford. The move to the Emirates Stadium was funded by the sale of Highbury to housing, increases in match-day and commercial revenue and, sadly, selling one or two of our best players each year, all to balance the books. It could be said that Arsène Wenger was the forerunner of former Chancellor George Osborne, with perhaps the difference being that Arsène really did balance the books Unfortunately for us, our rivals did not need to look at such sound economics to underpin their transformation because something else that we did not know about was afoot at that time: everything changed when Roman Abramovich arrived at Chelsea in 2003. Of course, he was not the first sugar daddy to arrive in English football, but he was the first who seemed to have and fund a bottomless pit. I recall our former vice-chairman, David Dein, capturing the scene when—[Interruption.] Great man indeed. When, as you may remember, Mr Speaker, Chelsea put in a bid for the great Thierry Henry, David Dein joked: "Roman Abramovich has parked his Russian tanks on our lawn and is firing £50 notes at us." Fortunately, we did not sell Thierry Where Abramovich began, Sheikh Mansour at Manchester City continued, and others from the international playgrounds have joined in. Some owners paid for a plaything and some of those clubs paid for it by going to the wall—Portsmouth being one such example. West Ham did not even have to bother paying for a stadium at all, and I would contend that it barely pays for its stadium now. All this careful financial planning and prudent investment has been diminished by the flow of foreign cash, which could not have been foreseen. I am proud that the club that Arsène Wenger built washes its own face with the highest matchday revenue in the world and not, as he infamously put it, via financial doping from wealthy individuals based in countries with dubious records on human rights and worse Arsène Wenger’s fourth contribution was his ability to be the best of talent from abroad. We have embraced him and he has embraced us. It may seem hard to believe today, but when he took over at Arsenal, only one other premiership club had a foreign manager in place: Ruud Gullit at Chelsea. Arsène Wenger was the first foreign manager to win the league. In taking a great British institution and enhancing it with flair, ideas and panache honed in France and Japan, he has shown not only what talent from abroad can do to deliver change in this country but what our country can do to embrace those from abroad.