The old phrase goes, if you can beat them, join them. Well Ivan Gazidis has done just that. Arsenal, victims to the UEFA touchline ban, might be able to breathe a little bit easier now that the club has representation on the UEFA Professional Strategy Council.
The council has no bearing on the discipline of manager’s but maybe our participation will curry the club a little favour where none has seemed to exist recently.
The second place, the European Club Association Executive Board, is a great strategic spot for the club. It keeps Arsenal tied into the other top clubs in the closest fashion and gives Arsenal a vote in the proposition of new rules and charters. Once proposed items are brought to the clubs to be voted on by the larger populous before becoming football law.
As these appointments are in addition to other appointments and memberships (FA’s Professional Game Board (PGB), the FA Council and FIFA’s Dispute Resolution Chamber) and his role as Chairman on ECA’s Legal Advisory Panel, one could fairly ask the question of whether this could take his focus off of Arsenal’s day to day operations. This is where you come in, do these footballing association roles help Arsenal by becoming more involved with football governance AND by keeping IG to a more macro-view of Arsenal; or would Arsenal benefit more by having IG more involved in the day to day affairs of the club? This is a modest change to his total hours of footballing work; these appointments will not cause IG to be absent for a day every two weeks, not even a day every month. If these appointments are in addition to all of his normal efforts, then we could argue that we are getting better value for his high salary; the salary that so many people have complained about. Before you jump all over me for being a Gazidis apologist, understand that I am just throwing out scenarios for you to comment on, they are little tidbits to debate.
Arsenal currently sit on, have sat on and participated with other UEFA, ECA, and FA groups in the past, but these are appointments (in addition to a couple others) that do not have an expiry date on them, so Arsenal should be able to keep these posts as long as we keep Ivan Gazidis with the club. For those who want IG out, sorry, this should help keep his job even more secure. For those who want trophies maybe this will curry favour for the Arsenal, we could all use a Howard Webb of our own. For those who simply do not care, thank you for your time.
If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em; or better yet, if you can beat ManUre, just take their vacated seats.
Cheers,
Morgan
@MorganArseCan
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