Translated material
"Arshavin Course"
£12 million for number 13
Zenit never found the strength to peacefully part with the highest paid football player in Russia, Andrei Arshavin. Yesterday, until the last moment, it was not known whether the player’s transfer to London’s Arsenal took place. Arshavin had already discussed all the details of the agreement with the Gunners, chose the 13th number in the new team, but for a long time could not come to an agreement with the leaders of Gazprom, on whom this transfer largely depended.Finally, everything with Arshavin’s transfer should have been decided by 20.00 Moscow time. But even after hour X, conflicting information continued to arrive. As a result, after a number of reports about the breakdown of the deal, Zenit General Director Maxim Mitrofanov announced that negotiations were continuing, and just before this issue of Vremya Novostey was signed for publication, the France Press agency reported that the contract had been signed after all.
While Andrei Arshavin’s career was in limbo, English publications tracked the Russian player’s movements around the world online. On Friday, he seemed to have already said goodbye to his Zenit partners and was going to fly to London, but stayed at the training camp in the UAE. And on Saturday, Arshavin was not on board the plane that brought the Zenit team to St. Petersburg. On Sunday he was seen in Paris, and yesterday Arshavin reached the capital of Great Britain. There, according to the London press, he managed to visit the Arsenal base and even underwent a medical examination, just in case, and then, together with his agents, spent a long time in the Gunners’ office.
All this time, bookmakers constantly changed the odds for the bet “will Arshavin move to Arsenal or remain in Russia.” The less time remained, the lower the Russian’s chances of ending up at the Emirates this winter were assessed. Gunners head coach Arsene Wenger took an active part in this. Either, according to his assessment, the probability of Arshavin’s transfer was 90%, or the French specialist did not see any urgent need for the Russian player at all.
Andrei Arshavin clearly outlined his own “bet”: a few days ago the footballer announced that if Zenit did not let him go to England, he would go on strike.
At the same time, news agencies reported on the latest fluctuations in the “Arshavin rate”. It has changed several times over the past week. Initially, Arsenal offered Zenit 12 million pounds plus some kind of bonus payment system. As a result, if Arshavin played the maximum number of matches for the Gunners and scored a certain number of goals, then the amount of his transfer would increase to 15 million pounds.
At the same time, Zenit demanded another 2.5 million euros from the player himself. The club’s position was based on the fact that two years ago Andrei Arshavin received a bonus of 5 million euros when concluding a long-term four-year contract. Since the player only served half the term, he must return half the amount.
On the last day of the pre-application period, Arshavin was ready to take this step. However, Zenit still demanded a lump sum payment from Arsenal greater than the indicated £12 million. The Gunners wanted to cover this shortfall by reducing the player’s salary, and even the opinion of the owner of a 25 percent stake in the London club, Alisher Usmanov, who, according to rumors, lobbied for the deal, did not force Arsenal to make concessions.
A few minutes before the transfer window closed, information was again received that Arshavin had finally reached an agreement with the British, but then Zenit came onto the scene again, updating its financial claims against the player. And since the English Premier League, under the pretext of bad weather conditions, extended the deadline for additional applications, the parties received additional time for negotiations.