^^^^ a great comments and very true. rmcf is father of football imo

@winecooler totally agree, Footaholic we're not Swansea! We're arsenal ffs! Even Swansea won this year more than Arenal in 8 years.

^^^^ FH point is that win without basically cheating tho quikzyyy. anyway with FFP you cant do what city and chelsea did. so you have missed the 'boat'. whether you see that as good or bad news is up to you but it matters little

Hehe, just to put a cat amongst the pigeons:

Don't forget that Real Madrid's signing of super-expensive stars from around the world did not start with Florentino Perez. You can thank Santiago Bernabeu instead, for that particular philosophy. ;) Molowny, Muñoz, Di Stéfano, Gento, Rial, Santamaría, Kopa, Puskás, Amancio, Pirri, Netzer, Santillana, Juanito, Camacho, del Bosque...

The original Galacticos, and Bernabeu was the world's first Abramovic, doncha know (president from 1943-1978 (his death), you're telling me that was all pure election victory? ;p)?

And before any Barca fans get cocky, let's not forget Barcelona broke the world record transfer fee to sign Cruyff as a player, and also assembled the Dream Team, long before Perez got in the game.

Money has always been the catalyst for success. The difference, of course, being that we remember the successes, and forget the failures. Rangers, anyone?

^^^^ this was monies of the club tho not a disease from russia spending his personal fortune - a personal fortune also very questionably obtained....

I was interested about this topic, Then I saw TheSun in the picture and immediatly noticed it's bullshit.

Where did the money to build the Bernabeu stadium, and buy Di Stefano, Puskas etc, come from? Real Madrid were a small club, at the time, with no cash. ;)

You're right about Barcelona's money, though -- interesting how they built the Camp Nou in 1957, but didn't get to be a major competitor again until the 70s, because all their cash had gone into the stadium. Perhaps Arsenal just need to wait another decade?

^^^^ well if there was some outside investment at least (like blackburn rovers of 95) it came from ppl who love the club. in chelsea case this disease just wanted to get him and his money out of russia. he is despicable and should be thrown in jail imo. using our beautiful game as his toy? how dare he. the funniest thing is abramoich is a jew and his fans have a neo nazi core singing hate songs to jews in the pubs around stamford bridge before/after games. citys story is not alot better. despicable clubs imo

raimondo can confirm but i believe germany has rule already to prevent such cheating

@everyone: i was using Swansea as an example to show that EVEN small clubs can be successful using this model. I KNOW we're not swansea but there are countless other successful clubs that run on this model (e.g Bayern, BVB, Barca, RM [in there own way], etc.). 

As for the current scenario, we have a real dilemma on our hands. We all want Kreonke to fuck off because he doesn't give a shit about football, let alone Arsenal. He never attends any matches and knows fuck all about the club & sport but he's going to bring it down like he has with every other sports club he's bought. Now, we want to get rid of him and get someone or a group of people who will be willing to maybe engage with fans and maybe subsidise the academy (which a large % of our money goes to) and erase the debt (would make no sense as the interest is so low that the penalty of an up-front payment would far outweigh it). The thing is if an incoming buyer can guarantee that they will increase our commercial revenue (which has been pathetic) & use only what we make to propel us forward then I'd be completely on board. Unfortunately, most buyers won't want to do that. They'll want to pump "significant funds" into the transfer market and that is not how clubs should be run.

^^^^ good comments apart from unecesaary swearing ;) ffp which epl is adapting too (?) will mean the cheating cant continue anyways no ?

TO ALL THE FOOTYROOM MEMBERS

I have tried to the best of my abilities to ignore the countless ignorant diatribes by @AjaxDeSuperYids but I fear that my patience is wearing quite thin. So forgive me if I expose him for the lying twat that he is...

@AjaxDeSuperYids: You sir, a blight to this community. You speak of things of which you know not and continuously sling mud and attack Arsenal and troll every Arsenal-related topic even though unprovoked. In short, you are a passive-aggressive incarantion of VanDerAdebayor . The difference is, that you aren't a parody account and you actually believe the shit that comes out of your mouth.
I suggest you keep your mouth shut in future before I expose you for the pathetic lying imbecile you are. The sad thing is it's a shame you don't even realize how much I and Arsenal fans admire & respect Ajax. You bring shame to its name. If you desist I will not criticize you further.

@Lodatz : I will slightly disagree on this one. Every team buys players. No team has 11 players playing from their youth academy. Even currently Barcelona (regarded as having one of the best youth academy around) has had Ronaldinho, Eto, Sanchez, Ibrahimovich, Mascherano, Dani Alves, Deco and few others that they bought.

In case of Madrid, though we bought Stefano and others including Puskas, SantaMaria etc. we still had Spanish talents which came from our system. Unlike now where we had almost bought the whole team except Casillas, Arbeloa and Callejon. Therefore this is Galactico Era .. nothing like that happened before.

I have my proofs.

Stefano was bought in 1953 and Puskas in 1958. There is a gap of 5 years. Netzer was bought in 1973. Juanito in 1977

Gento was Spanish who just played 9 games as a youth of Racing Santander and then went on playing 570+ games for Madrid where he retired. He was bought in 1952 when he was 18 years old.

Vincente Del Bosque  was an all out Madridista. He became a part of team in 1968.

Miguel Munoz was 23 when he joined Madrid and had played only 30-35 games in his career before that. He went on to play for the club and managed the first team and Castilla for almost 30 years.

Luis Molowny joined Madrid at an age of 19. I am guessing he wasn't "super expensive" as you said. Neither were Gento  and Munoz.

Santillana was bought in 1970 when he was 18 years old and he retired at Madrid.

Pirri was 18 when he moved to Madrid from Granada where he played only 18 games and went on to play 400+ games for Madrid.

Amancio Amaro played his entire career for Real Madrid though he was not our youth but his first club match was for us at an age of 21.

Jose Camacho was our youth product who retired at Real Madrid.

These are the names you mentioned and I can find only 4 of them who were actually "super expensive" when Madrid bought them. You also mentioned Hector Rial and Kopa. FYI they played less than 100 matches for Madrid and weren't a integral part of the team. You can tell me more names and I will again reply with their facts.

For Santiago Bernebeu, I can tell you in brief that the election process back then was not at all an issue. The team was doomed by Civil War in Spain and the club was not running properly ... forget the elections. Bernebeu had no funds to bring back the club to a fighting level. He got help from people from Spain and the Government of Spain itself.

Raimundu Saporta was -an excellent scout who scouted most of the players I mentioned above. He got talented players at a very young age of 18-19 who later became club legends. They were not "super expensive".

I therefore request you to present facts before calling Real Madrid a money club back in 1950s to 1980s.

You are not the only "over smart" who just copies Wikipedia and knows nothing about the " The Church Of Spain - SANTIAGO BERNABEU ".

Below are some pics to clear any doubt in mind.

Ajax: Wtf are you saying? You're so badly stuck in the 90s, you need help to understand what modern football is. Roman IS a Chelsea fan. Not just an owner. There is also no such thing as neo nazi songs in the pub from Chelsea fans. Stop with the bullshit.

this from the man who repeatedly swears and swears at me routinely! ill jump ahead of the queue and exposes you - a aggressive, rude child. dont worry if other is offended by his post i have complained about him once to FR already and will now again. a sorry would help but you need to grow up young man

1955-56 squad :

1961-62 squad:

1966-67 squad :

1971-72 squad :

1976-77 squad :

1981-82 squad:

1986-87 squad :

There are too many Spanish players in the starting XI in these 30 years.'

Doesn't it remind you of current Barcelona ??

And then you compared Santiago Bernabeu to Roman Abramovich !!

HOW DARE YOU ??

@naman: Hold your horses there, man.

You make a good case indeed, and fair enough -- you've schooled me on the majority of those players. If I sounded like I was saying Real's history is the same as, say, Chelsea's recent history, then I'll take it back and apologize. You're right; they're not.

However. Before you get too righteous, I feel it should be pointed out that, by government order, Real Madrid's president before Bernabeu was fired, and he was elected instead. It's also the case that the government did NOT give Real Madrid any money to rebuild after the Civil War -- all of the money used to build the stadium came from private wealth and bank loans.

Bank loans which were well repaid by the enormous success that followed in the 50s.

So, yes. Real's money and success came about as a result of one another. Do bear in mind that if Chelsea, for example, manage to turn themselves into a profitable club, based upon the success that Abramovic's money has brought, then this will not be a lot different.

I don't copy Wikipedia, friend. I feel a little insulted that you said so, even as you felt insulted that I compared Bernabeu to Abramovic.

vendetta you have a computer no? put google to good use rather than put fingers in your ears and say no no no like fh does on other topics

To be fair, even I wouldn't compare Santiago Bernabau to Roman :p.

@Ajax: With pleasure. I'll be glad to show you how Roman is the perfect owner in another post later today or maybe tomorrow. With EVIDENCE. Something you don't use at the ideal times of an argument.