European football in 'disastrous financial situation' - Wenger

Arsene Wenger today claimed European football had hit a financial brick wall.

On the day the Arsenal manager made his first signing of the summer – a £2.4m (€3.8) swoop for fellow Frenchman Pascal Cygan – he suggested a quiet transfer market is the sign that clubs are becoming more realistic in their spending.

Spiralling transfer fees are seemingly a thing of the past on current evidence and players’ wages could soon start decreasing rather than increasing if the evidence of Italy and Spain is anything to go by.

Last summer Manchester United broke the British transfer record twice with the purchases of Ruud van Nistelrooy and latterly Juan Sebastian Veron for a combined total of nearly £48m (€75.5m).

But 12 months later Nicolas Anelka’s move from Paris St Germain to United’s neighbours Manchester City is the only deal to break the £10m (€15.7m) mark.

“We all thought the car was going into the wall and the accident was about to happen – but the car has already hit the wall,” said Wenger, who points to less deals in general this year.

“The transfer market is a bit cyclic and at the moment we are in a depression. It could go up again, but now it is down.

“I put that down to a disastrous financial situation in football in Europe.

“I have been offered players that haven’t been paid for five, six, seven months. Not in England, but from foreign countries.

“Once you stop paying the players any more there is a deep problem.”

Given the lowering of transfer fees, Wenger is loathed to splash out Arsenal’s money.

“The difficulty with the market now is that it has become so flat that it is difficult to make a decision to buy a player for £15m (€23.6m) because it could go down again next year and the players are worth nothing on the market.

“You could invest money now and not get anything back,” he said.

Wenger is not in a situation like Terry Venables, who has walked into Leeds with an order to find £15m (€23.6m) from player sales.

And the Frenchman believes the way Arsenal balance the books is the way to prosper.

“We spent a lot of money last year, yes, but we sold a lot of players in the years before,” Wenger declared.

“Our financial situation is good and we never spend crazy money.”

Wenger recouped £23m (€36m) by selling Anelka to Real Madrid three years ago and then collected £30m (€47m) for the joint sales of Marc Overmars and Emmanuel Petit to Barcelona 12 months later.

In contrast his three most prized assets now – Patrick Vieira, Thierry Henry and Robert Pires – cost less collectively than Anelka.

Such dealing has certainly pleased vice-chairman David Dein.

He revealed: “Arsene once said buying big players only gets you one thing - big salaries.

“The art is not to buy the guy that impressed everyone at the World Cup. The art is to buy a Nicolas Anelka, Thierry Henry, Robert Pires or Patrick Vieira.”

Wenger defended his policy, adding: “We have a young team so why should we spend crazy money on people in certain positions where we have young players?”

Dein has also warned players and agents to come into line with the reality, which the collapse of the ITV Digital television deal drove home to clubs.

He said: “I think there is a realignment now within football and it’s no secret that salaries have gone through the roof.

“Clubs now realise that they have to balance the books.

“The players and their agents have got to realise that we don’t have money trees in the back garden.”