Why would Ivan leave now?
Is it bye bye?
He finally got what he wanted for some time, be the man at the helm at the Arsenal.
Arsène Wenger has been gently hushed out of the Club and a brand new structure has been built to make the Arsenal a modern, more continental Club.
Ivan Gazidis led the process to interview and hire a new Head of Recruitment, a (Non)Director of Football and a Contract Negotiator, effectively paving the way to a new Head Coach to come in and replace Arsène Wenger on a pure football-based role.
To shake up a big Club like the Arsenal requires a lot of determination and dedication and Ivan Gazidis surely deserves a lot of credit for handling the whole process in a very efficient way.
New head coach decision
Ivan Gazidis is now the man under the spotlight, the catalyst for change we heard so much about.
No more of the same old Arsenal, no more of the same old Arsène Wenger and his stubbornness, no more of the well-known tactics, players’ recruitment, results and performances: the Arsenal enters a new era and Ivan Gazidis will be at the heart of it!
So why would Ivan leave now?
Italian media are unanimous in their reports, the South-African business man will be the next CEO at AC Milan, a Club that wasted tons of money in the past two years and spent a fortune on average players – a fortune that the former owner and board didn’t seem to possess, by the way.
AC Milan new owner, Paul Singer, has taken over and revolutionized the whole management, appointing Umberto Gandini as the new CEO and former Brazilian player Leonardo as Director of Football.
Paul Singer
Where would Ivan Gazidis fit in here? Well, according to Italian outlets, AC Milan will have two CEOs, one more football-oriented (Gandini) and one more finance-oriented, Gazidis.
At AC Milan, Ivan Gazidis will be in charge of increasing the income, reduce the costs, make a profit of every single resource at the Club and help refunding a business that needs over 150 million euros to get back on track – according to well-informed Italian media.
Also, trustworthy rumors are that Paul Singer isn’t there to stay but only wants to make AC Milan more appealing for a future sale.
Basically, the Club currently is a mess and the current owner is only there to fix some structural issues before jumping the ship.
Again, why would Ivan leave now?
He’d get himself a hell of a challenge, a bit similar to the one he got during our transition from Highbury to the Emirates Stadium: sell expensive, buy cheap and try to restore AC Milan status among the top European Clubs.
In some ways, though, the challenge presents very few risks as it’s very difficult to imagine AC Milan falling further down after the horrendous “Mr. Li” tenure, so Ivan Gazidis will be hailed a hero if he could get the balance right and make AC Milan profitable again.
Does it sound any familiar? Ivan Gazidis at AC Milan will operate in the dark, behind closed doors, and leave all the football to his colleagues Umberto Gandini, Leonardo and the next head coach – who apparently won’t be Gennaro Gattuso.
Ivan Gazidis will start from scratches and leave the Arsenal behind him, a place he transformed very deeply in the past twelve months.
At this moment in time, the Arsenal Football Club is surrounded by enthusiasm and positivity: the new structure seems to work well, the recruitment of new players looks effective, Unai Emery seems the perfect coach and we are entering the new season with a lot of hopes and expectations.
Everything looks so perfect now around the Arsenal that any signing, any press conference, any training session is awesome and incredible.
I could barely hold my laughter at media reporting how Arsenal players were having DOUBLE SESSIONS during the off-season, like it wasn’t the case before.
Fact is, actual football hasn’t started yet and we all know how quickly things usually change once the first ball is kicked: shall things turn ugly – which I hope they won’t – being the man at the helm won’t be the most comfortable position for Ivan Gazidis, after years of Arsène Wenger taking all the blame.
Unai Emery will need time and support to see his ideas implemented in a new country and a new league and players like Stephan Lichtsteiner or Sokratis do not belong to the game-changer category (Lucas Torreira does, though), hence the Spaniard will surely find it difficult, at some point.
I don’t know about you but I don’t expect much about the new season, I only hope we will be in the mix to grab a Champions League spot and hopefully have a good run in the cups.
The question is: shall next season be a carbon-copy of last season in terms of league finish and cups run-ins, how will the fan base take it?
How long will the honeymoon last?
Won’t be blamed
Shall fans get unrested, who will they blame?
Not Unai Emery, of course, as the head coach has just started his journey nor the newly-appointed Sven Mislintat and Raul Sanllehí.
They will blame the man at the helm, the catalyst for change.
I’m being very cynical here but this might be the perfect moment for Ivan Gazidis to jump the ship and keep his reputation immaculate: he built the “new” Arsenal, he put people in the right places to help the Club’s growth but won’t be held responsible in case the new tenure turns out to be a disaster.
Here’s why Ivan would leave now.
PS: Arsène Wenger is among the coaches being shortlisted to take over from Gennaro Gattuso.
I’d pay good money to see Ivan Gazidis face when he spots Arsène Wenger’s face in the dugout.
Italian living in Switzerland, Gooner since mid-nineties, when the Gunners defeated my hometown team, in Copenhagen. I started my own blog and podcast (www.clockenditalia.com) after after some experiences with Italian websites and football magazines. Covering Arsenal Women with the occasional rant about the boys.
Sorry i dont get what all the fuss is about, Gazidis has been an awful awful CEO and wouldn’t last in any big American Sports franchise. Its taken him 10 years to get anything like a proper team behind the scenes whose effect we are still yet to see. I have my doubts about Emery too but hope he improves us. Our recruitments this summer have been quick and in positions we need but nowhere near the quality needed to challenge especially with Leno in goal and Sokratis in defence. Have high hopes for Torreira but he’s only 22. Our commercial deals bar the VISIT RWANDA which was basically handed to us by a fellow gooner (Paul Kagame) is almost mid table level not taking advantage of our position as Loudon most illustrious club. The extension of the Emirates naming rights for peanuts which the Emirates CEO once said is almost criminal. Honestly IVAN wouldn’t last at City or United nevermind Bayern Munich of the 2 Spanish giants. Hes has presided over probably one of our worst decades ever and i dont see how Gazidis all of a sudden is a saviour. Yes it seems wierd for him to leave after winning the so called power battle but why did it take him 10 whole years to convince Stan. Honestly i love the new vibe among fans this summer which i hope will translate into support throughout the season regardless of results. We need to back our lads till we get it right . Dont think this will necessarily be a successful season but hopefully a new start that will build the foundations for a successful period but Ivan is no footballing genius i must say.
“He’d get himself a hell of a challenge, a bit similar to the one he got during our transition from Highbury to the Emirates Stadium” – not really, as he turned up at Arsenal over two years after the stadium move completed. Everything was up and running and he hasn’t had to do anything with the financing. Basically he did very little for the first nine years.