Given the modern form of communication that links Arsenal’s most senior executives, it would not have been a surprise for the ping of a WhatsApp message to reverberate in the director’s box at the Emirates in the seconds after Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Mesut Özil hurtled off in celebration of a goal against Leicester last Monday that got everyone talking. Stan Kroenke and his son Josh are in a WhatsApp group with a select group of Arsenal’s top management figures and it is not unusual for them to share transatlantic messages in the middle of a game.
Raúl Sanllehí and Vinai Venkatesham have the fleeting look of men who wonder about the wisdom of dropping details of an intriguing source of communication into conversation. “You have got into a hole, my friend,” Sanllehí jokes to his partner in the new Arsenal leadership team. But it is a sign of the new direction in which they are pushing that they naturally transmit a flow of openness and enthusiasm – a stronger human touch.
If Unai Emery is trying to breathe freshness into Arsenal on the pitch, Sanllehí, director of football, and Venkatesham, managing director, are seizing the opportunity to bring a burst of new energy at executive level. These two men have been promoted to share the duties Ivan Gazidis will pass over at the end of the month when he moves to Milan. Are two heads better than one? That depends on how well the two heads get along and Sanllehí and Venkatesham are excited about pooling their expertise.
Sanllehí, recruited from Barcelona last January, brings the football connections. Venkatesham, an organiser on the 2012 London Olympics, leads the business side. Returning Arsenal to the Champions League as quickly as possible crops up repeatedly as phase one of their ambitions.
“We want to win the biggest trophies in the game and, if you compete in the Premier League, there are only two – the Premier League and the Champions League,” says Venkatesham. “The short‑term ambition is to get back in the Champions League. That is a step on the journey but not the ultimate ambition. Raúl and I were out in Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago and spent a lot of time over two or three days with Stan and Josh and they are 100% committed to that vision of competing to win the Premier League and competing to win the Champions League.”
Of course that is easier said than done, particularly when promoting a self-sustaining model in an environment where some rival football clubs are backed by the generosity of sovereign wealth funds.
Venkatesham understands the scepticism. “I’d completely get that, if there was one team who was winning the league every year by 20 points who had a completely different model to the rest. But that’s not what I’m seeing generally in the Premier League. That’s not what’s happening.”Sanllehí preaches the ideal of wringing every last drop out of their assets to try to achieve in a different way. “We need to be very, very efficient in the design of the first team. We need to be very efficient in the way we play and the way we generate the income to put more fuel into the machine. Your level is not only a case of how much you can pay your players,” he argues.
“We need to regain that positioning, that privilege, to be seen as a Champions League club. From there the wheel starts rolling again. That is what is going to give us the speed, also to be attractive to better players, to generate more money. It is the virtuous circle.”
On the back of an 11-game winning run, are they ahead of schedule? Sanllehí defers to a Spanish maxim: paso a paso – step by step. “Unanimously everybody thinks the expectation should be the shorter the better, of course. Unai would not accept anything less than going for Champions League right now on his own expectation.
“I don’t want with this to put on additional pressure because we want to go in the right direction and sometimes – as he always says – paso a paso. We’re in a great streak of victories, hopefully it will last longer. The longer the better. But we know there are going to be ups and downs this season. Getting to the Champions League is one of the main objectives. But Unai would not settle for that. He would go higher. Not to over-promise and not to put extra pressure on him. But he’s going all the way.”
As they talk the sun is streaming into the boardroom that overlooks the first-team training pitch at Arsenal’s London Colney. It is part of the structural reshuffling the executive team have offices at both the training ground and the Emirates (where it has not gone unnoticed that Venkatesham has kept his desk within the open plan workspace rather than take the formal room upstairs, as he prefers to mix and talk to people).
This reshuffle coincides with a radical period of change at Arsenal. In addition to Emery, numerous support staff came in and out around the time of Arsène Wenger’s departure, and Kroenke Sports & Entertainment is formalising a full takeover of the shares. That is not a universally popular move with open, plural ownership now lost and the key question about annual interest payments resulting from the takeover being funded by £557m of borrowed money a continuing concern.
But Sanllehí offers an alternative view about full ownership – as if the Kroenkes might have been holding something back during the standoff with the other main shareholder of recent years, Alisher Usmanov. “The commitment and engagement from the Kroenkes was very clearly stated several times in our recent visit. Now with full ownership that commitment has grown to a higher stage. They are sports-passionate people and they like to win.”
The relationship with the Kroenkes is clearly important, and joking aside the WhatsApp group serves a purpose. Lines of communication are kept open. Venkatesham says: “If there is a decision to be made or a question that needs answering and we need to get hold of Josh and Stan, they are on, available and engaged whenever we want to get them. We don’t have the formality of a conference call every other day to talk about things because we don’t really see the benefit. Football moves so quickly you can have a conference call on Wednesday morning and then on Wednesday afternoon there is an issue and we need to talk to the guys.”
So what might happen if an extraordinary opportunity, something exceptional outside the normal self-sustaining model, dropped into their laps? Would they take that to the Kroenkes and might they be receptive? Could they push for greater input?
“They would definitely listen,” Sanllehí says. “What they have proved to us is that they are extremely reasonable and that they are passionate about this project. We talk constantly and they are very intelligent people. If there is a very clear opportunity we would definitely talk to them about it.”
Venkatesham smiles. “The one thing I wish I could do is show you the WhatsaApp group.” Naturally, though, while they get on with the serious business >of running Arsenal<, such tantalising detail has to must be left to our imagination.
The Guardian Sport
