How much Tim Lewis earned before surprising Arsenal exit revealed
Arsenal have announced various boardroom changes following the departure of Tim Lewis at the Emirates Stadium.
It was confirmed on 19 September Lewis would be leaving Arsenal in a revamp of the club’s board.
Lewis, whose latest role at the Emirates was as executive vice-chair, has advised owner Stan Kroenke on his investments in Arsenal since 2007.
Former Man City financial adviser Stefan Borson exclusively told Football Insider Lewis tripled his salary in the three years before leaving the Emirates.
Meanwhile, Arsenal confirmed Richard Garlick has been promoted from managing director to chief executive with immediate effect.
Tim Lewis is ‘briefing’ details of his Arsenal salary
Kroenke Sports & Entertainment’s (KSE) Kelly Blaha and Otto Maly have joined Arsenal’s board as non-executive directors alongside Dave Steiner, a long-term advisor to KSE.
However, Arsenal’s decision to appoint Ben Winston as a non-executive director hasn’t gone down too well with some of the club’s fans, with many questioning the producer and director’s credentials.
Speaking exclusively to Football Insider about Lewis’s departure, Borson said: “He’s briefing ‘I never took a bonus’, which is a bit of an interesting thing to say when you’ve been paid £2million last year, and £1.3m in the year before.
“I mean, I guess a number of executives in the Premier League are paid around that sort of level. Maybe you’d say that’s fine, but I don’t really see it as being particularly exceptionally low.
“We can see from the accounts he pretty much trebled his salary over three years, so he went from £600,000 to £1.3m to £2m for 2024. We don’t know about 2025, but you would think it was £2m.”
It has been revealed Lewis made the “surprising” decision to reject a non-executive role before leaving the Emirates.
Could Lewis take legal action after Arsenal exit?
Former Everton CEO Keith Wyness told Football Insider Arsenal staff are relieved following Lewis’s exit as speculation continues around the circumstances of his departure.
Borson said: “There was some talk about it going legal.
“I wouldn’t have thought that was necessary because I would have thought that his contract would have said a certain notice period, an executive-style notice period rather than a fixed-term contract like a player, and they would have had to have paid him out on putting him on gardening leave if there’s no position for him going forward.
“It feels fairly straightforward unless there’s a story we don’t know about and I think that’s unlikely. I don’t think it’ll go legal.”
As part of the boardroom reshuffle, co-chair Josh Kroenke is now also expected to play a more prominent role at the Emirates.
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