Arsenal are regretting not tying up their star players Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez to new deals in the summer, as the duo are now reportedly demanding contracts worth up to and/or in excess of £250,000 a week, according to a report in The Independent.
The report claims that both stars are demanding such staggering wages in the aftermath of the Brexit vote. Arsenal’s key midfield star Santi Cazorla is also yet to be offered a new contract, as he nears the end of his current contract which expires at the end of the season. The club had reportedly kicked of negotiations with Ozil and Alexis in the summer, but failed to pin the two stars down to new deals.
Both Ozil and Sanchez are out of contract in 2018, and Arsenal have been desperately trying to tie them down to a deal that will run till at least 2020. However, these wage demands, must now come of as a surprise for Arsenal as they are a whole lot above what was discussed with the duo in the summer.
These wage demands have been linked to a number of possible reasons. On the face of it, this would not come off as a surprise given the amount of money there is in the Premier League on general principal.
The report in The Independent quotes three known reasons for why these wage demands have come into the picture in the first place:
One has to do with the fact that the closer players get to the last or final period of their contracts, it becomes a whole lot more difficult for clubs to negotiate new deals with them, for a possibility of a free move makes any player a whole lot more valuable to the club than it makes the club for a player.
The second, has to do with amount of money that has now come in to the Premier League in the form of new television deals. This puts players in a position that they feel entitled to a much higher wage given the proportionate inflow of revenue earned by their respective clubs. (Of course, this depends entirely on who you are as a player, and in this case, Ozil and Sanchez are undoubtedly the ‘big stars’ in the current Arsenal line up.
The third and a slightly more complicated reason for why such a wage demand is being made has to do with the decline in the value of the pound in the aftermath of the Brexit vote in June.
The argument put forward makes a lot of sense in context with Premier League clubs likely to face a lot of problems in signing foreign players, provided that many of them have families abroad to look after and properties and assets to keep afloat, and the pound declining would therefore stimulate foreign players to demand higher wages.
While all this is true, there is still scope for negotiations, and the possibility must be entertained that Mesut Ozil is at the Emirates for reasons other than money. He has been reportedly happy in London, while Sanchez too has starred for the Gunners thus far.
Arsenal fans can only hope that their two big name players are tied down to new contracts sooner than later.
