Mikel Arteta has defended Arsenal’s swathe of job cuts just months after they won their first title in 22 years. The Gunners boss claimed the decision to make 60 employees redundant would help Arsenal “evolve and improve” despite recording revenues of £691m for the 2024-25 financial year.
Decision explained to Arteta
The bombshell job cuts were made in a call from chief executive Richard Garlick to staff this week. They come just a week after Arteta signed a new £20m-a-year contract at the Emirates. The move has gone down badly with fans and was a hammer blow to employees, while being branded an “own goal” by football finance expert Kieran Maguire.
Arteta put up a united front on behalf of the club as he said the hierarchy should be answering the questions, but still supported the highly controversial move.
Arteta’s response
Arteta said: “Well, first, because this question is not for me. It was explained to me about the exercise and analysis that has been done across the club. And with the intention always to evolve, to improve. Some decisions have to be taken to put people in the right roles and keep investing to achieve what we want to achieve and the success that we want to create. So that's been explained. Obviously, I'm not the right person to answer to that question. That's for sure. And hopefully everybody will respect that.”
Arteta refused to take further questions on the issue, which affects a huge percentage of the total 871 club employees. The playing side of the club has been protected from the cuts, and it is clearly a bad look after Arsenal announced Arteta’s new contract exactly a week before making the cuts.
Review backfires
Arsenal brought in an outside firm, Boston Consulting Group, to carry out a full review of its operation with the idea to make the club more efficient. But it has backfired badly, and they are receiving similar backlash to Manchester United when they made huge cuts after Sir Jim Ratcliffe bought into the club.
Even then, United managers - including former boss Ruben Amorim - admitted the cuts were devastating for the whole club and affected the mood, and expressed great regret that employees were losing their jobs.
