Kieran Maguire issues ‘mad’ claim after Arsenal pay reveal revealed
The cash Arsenal forked out to directors doubled over the last financial year but is still not huge by the Premier League’s “mad” standards.
So says finance guru Kieran Maguire, speaking exclusively to Football Insider about the Gunners’ accounts for the year ending 31 May 2021.
In the figures published on Monday (28 February), Arsenal revealed a goliath £107.3million total loss as revenues nosedived in the pandemic.
The Londoners finished 8th in the Premier League in 2020-21 and failed to qualify for European competition for the first time in almost 25 years.
But the accounts show that Arsenal paid out £1.098m to directors in that period, more than double the £548,000 figure of 2019-20.
Maguire compared numbers to previous years at the Emirates and against benchmarks in the Premier League.
“There are some numbers to put this in context,” he told Football Insider‘s Adam Williams.
“When Gazidis was at Arsenal a few years ago, the highest-paid director on the board earned £2.6m per year.
“But even now £491,000 for an individual director is comparatively low by mad Premier League standards.
“There are many directors at smaller clubs who earn considerably more than that. Brighton’s best-paid, for example, is on £2m per season.
Arsenal’s commercial income also tumbled from £142.6m in 2019-20 to £126.4m in 2020-21.
The total wage bill meanwhile soared by £12m, from £228m to £240m, despite Mike Arteta’s side sub-par sporting performance.
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