THIS IS GUNNER HURT

Arsenal, known as the Bank of England for their wealth & savvy spending, face a money meltdown.. and the players are warned they must help dig the club out of its financial black hole

ARSENAL players have been warned the club faces a “very grave situation” because of the coronavirus lockdown.

That was the message spelt out to the first-team squad in the pay proposal should the season not be completed or if Arsenal do not receive the “expected payments from broadcasters”.

And it begs the question – if a club the size of Arsenal fears a financial meltdown, then what hope for the rest of football?

The reality is that Arsenal’s £230million annual wage bill is huge, one of the biggest in the Premier League, with worries that deferrals alone will only kick the difficulty down the road.

After reporting losses of £27.1m last year, they are asking players to take a pay cut rather than a deferral, which only highlights the magnitude of the problem.

Arsenal’s payroll – believed to be 60 per cent of their turnover – has been a headache since they dropped out of the Champions

League. Another year out of Europe’s elite competition will cause even greater uncertainty because they gambled big on reaching the Champions League last summer – and are in danger of coming up short again.

They spent a clubrecord £72m on Nicolas Pepe, the repayments to Lille are spread over the length of his contract, but it was still money they did not have.

Mesut Ozil (left) is on £350,000 a week, top scorer Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang will only have one year left on his contract this summer and they are also paying a heavy price for an early exit from the Europa League after crashing out to Olympiakos.

Club owner Stan Kroenke (above) guaranteed last summer’s expenditure, underwriting the debt because of the complex funding of their Emirates Stadium.

Arsenal have always been cautious over spending, but could never have imagined it would be this bad.

There is a genuine fear they may yet have to repay huge sums of television cash with the Premier League desperate to complete this season with more than £750m of broadcasting money at stake. Plus there will be the loss of gate receipts, worth more than £2m a game, if the season as expected is played out behind closed doors.

Arsenal were known as the Bank of England club for their wealth, but also a conservative attitude towards spending, yet today’s reality is anything but.

They have gambled and are now trying desperately to

Arsenal have gambled, shown ambition... but it has backfired

claw money back, which seems unfair on stars they handed out big contracts to in the first place.

It is ironic that Gabon FA president Pierre Alain Mounguengui this weekend questioned Arsenal’s ambition and believes his country’s top striker Aubameyang should leave the Emirates for a Champions League club.

“I don’t want to say that Arsenal aren’t ambitious, but

Arsenal don’t have ambitions as high as some other clubs as far as Europe is concerned,” said Mounguengui. “Aubameyang is a world-class player. But for him, or anyone else in Europe who hasn’t won a major honour, football is a collective sport. He’s at Arsenal and he’s won nothing, so it’s a collective failing.”

Right now, Arsenal are failing on the pitch, but it is not through lack of ambition. If anything, ambition got the

better of them and made them pay beyond their means.

They are trying to push it back on the players to save around £25m.

But the Gunners will save significant sums in bonuses if their squad do not qualify for the Champions League.

So should players, who have already pledged generously to charity, have to cough up twice?