ARSENAL, Wenger: "We can't afford high salaries"

© foto di RICHRD PELHAM

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has declared: "We live in the economic reality which other clubs do not. There are some things we cannot afford to do. How much do you want to pay, £250,000 a week? £300,000? We are here to make the players as rich as possible but also to respect our balance sheet. Honestly, I think it is a short-term problem. You cannot imagine the world will go on just splashing money out without any return. When you have lost the standard of living for normal people, and the football world always gets higher and higher, that cannot last because people will not accept it. This is a situation that is a completely brutal reality of professional sport. Van Persie was captain of the team last year and until the last minute of the season he fought like mad. That is professional. It is a miracle we finished third. A big part of the miracle is down to him and you have to give him credit for that. He prepared for every game the right way. When he played the game he was 100 per cent committed. At the end he chose to go somewhere else. OK, I don’t like it, but that is being professional again. He is a boy, born in Holland. We have taken him from Holland and we have to accept that when a player is professional, he can move again".