Arsenal reveal Henry hope

Arsenal managing director Keith Edelman believes Champions League success could persuade Thierry Henry to sign a new contract with the club.

Henry’s contract runs out at the end of next season, with Barcelona linked with a move for the 28-year-old France striker.

Although Arsenal have struggled in the Barclays Premiership this season, Henry has skippered a young side to impressive performances against Juventus and Real Madrid in Europe.

With the club moving to a new stadium at Ashburton Grove next season, Edelman feels winning in Europe could be a factor in persuading Henry to commit.

“I think that would help,” he said. “We all want Thierry to stay at Arsenal Football Club. We’ve made him a very good offer, we’d love him to stay and we hope he’ll make that decision before the end of the season.

“I think it’s over 50% probability he will stay with us because we’ve got a new stadium to go to and we've got a great group of youngsters who show we’re a team for the future.

“I think Arsene (Wenger) has developed another great team and you’re seeing it develop in front of your eyes. When you watch that and play with that it’s very exciting. I think he will stay.”

Edelman revealed the financial incentives to do well in the Champions League, although he insists the club would not suffer if they failed to qualify next season.

“It would be worth a lot of money if we progressed in the competition,” he added on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“Just for beating Juventus we’d earn over £4m (€5.7m), if we got to the final but lost we’d increase our revenue by £8m (€11.5m), and if you go all the way it’s about £12-13m (€17.2m-€18.6m) extra revenue. So it is a lucrative competition.

“We’ve been lucky because over the last few years we’ve automatically qualified, so when we did our budgets in the summer we knew exactly what we’d earn and we assumed we would go through all the group stages to the first knock-out stage.

“That’s how we’ve done our budgets traditionally but we also do what is known as a ‘downside scenario’ when we look at our business assuming we are not in Europe over the longer term, just to make sure we have our finances in shape.”