Every club arrives at their position 'today' due to a number of past events.
Over the course of a club's history, there may have been disaster, poor ownership, good ownership, well spent investment, poorly spent investment, even a mix of good and bad fortune too.
Investment made 100 years ago, can influence the state of a club today.
Manchester United for instance had an Old Trafford capacity of 80,000 in the 1920's - which was far higher than any other club. At that time, it wasn't to fulfill the needs of an 80K crowd, it was more a case of 'build it and they will come'. That investment by a benefactor sowed an incredible seed for the future.
We are currently the brunt of people's objections because our benefactor is relatively recent, whilst those of 50-100 years ago are now considered 'irrelevant' (wrongly).
Arsenal, nor any other club for that matter, haven't made all their money from football alone. They have done so through speculative investments over the years. They, like others, including ourselves, have had to branch out from pure sport into the world of business, selling merchandise, buying land and property, investing in infrastuctureetc. They've done that through investor financing, where money the club did NOT have, was loaned to them on the understanding that they'd eventually be able to pay it back with interest.
They've done that with aplomb, which is what any successful business will do.
We too are doing the ssame, only we are doing so on a larger scale, and are much earlier into our project than they are theirs.
Arsenal have chosen in some part, to recoup their costs by charging their fans a relatively high price. That's their business, and it's for their fans to reconcile. I'm not sure City fans would be quite as willing to pay such a price for all manner of socio-economic reasons, but that's another matter.
People are right to try and educate other fans, or at least make them see things from our angle. History is important, and it's very narrow minded to believe it doesn't matter, or hasn't influenced the fortunes of all our clubs.
Of course Manchester City have bought success, or more correctly, used money to massively improve the odds of success. It is no coincidence that the relationship between spending and success has been established for over 100 years - it's nothing new! Arsenal are big spenders make no mistake. They are not as big as many of their rivals, but they outspend the majority of English clubs, which is why they remain in the upper echelons of English football. That's not to say they couldn't have made a hash of things and wasted their money, they could, but still, they've spent handsomely - which is why they repeatedly out perform Norwich City, or Blackburn Rovers (who incidentally, when given money, albeit for a brief period, managed to win the league themselves).
City were financially wreckless in the late 70's and early 80's and it effectively caused 25 years of mediocrity (at best). That was no fault of the fans. Now we've had good fortune, again no fault of the fans.
Arsenal are entirely free to cut new deals with partners, think up more creative revenue streams and compete with us. They can even sell themselves as a going concern to wealthier owners if they wish. There is absolutely nothing stopping them beating us at our own game. If they choose not to do so, that's fine, but they should stop moaning about their own choices.
They chose to invest heavily in a beautiful stadium, and spend moderately in the mean time. Once the stadium was paid for, it would leave them in a seriously good position to buy the very best players and win things aplenty.
We choose to invest in infrastructure too, but also in players, and so far it's paid off for us. If Arsenal failed to anticipate other clubs finding investment, that's their mistake.
No sensible City fan will claim we aren't using money to win things. We are.
Our argument is that it's been going on for years with other clubs, and it is they who are in denial of it. And that is where the argument shifts. Suddenly, it changes from 'who has spent handsomely' into 'who is worthy of spending handsomely'.
Apparently, we aren't worthy, whilst others are. There's some secret law about which investors and which clubs can monetise their brand, and which can't.
Making money from charging high prices, or selling merchandise in the millions to China is 'legit', whilst becoming an advertising platform for Abu Dhabi, and creating sister clubs is not 'legit'.
