Arsenal will continue to invest more funds towards the growth of the team even if they continue to be in the Europa League for a couple of more seasons, Arsenal managing director Vinai Venkatesham has confirmed.
The North London giants haven’t managed to grab a place in the top four and have been participating in the Europa League for the last couple of seasons.
The arrival of Unai Emery seems to have settled down things pretty quickly at the Emirates. Although the Spanish gaffer doesn’t have the pressure of delivering trophies in his maiden season finishing in the top four has always been the preference for the Gunners.
Venkatesham took the role after long servant Ivan Gazidis decided to join AC Milan to explore new things. The new chief insists the club won’t have to struggle much without Champions League as they do have the financial structure to soak up the pressure if needed.
“It is not going to be easy but I absolutely, 100 per cent believe Arsenal Football Club can get back to where it needs to get.
“The first step we need to do is get back into the Champions League and then we need to start competing and then we need to start winning the biggest trophies in the game.
“We need to be realistic, last season we finished sixth and we had our second season in a row in the Europa League – that is not where we want this football club to be.
“I think it has an impact across the club – it is a material impact, financially, being in the Europa League and not the Champions League.
“We do have a self-sustaining business model so the more years you spend out of the Champions League the bigger strain it puts on the business model,
“We run the business in a responsible way – we know there are at least six teams who have a minimum requirement of being in the Champions League.
“So we have that robustness built into our business model that we can have some seasons in the Europa League and still make the investments we need.”
