The on-going Arshavin saga

Over the last few days negotiations between Arsenal and Zenit St Petersburg over the sale of  Russian winger Andrei Arshavin appear to have reached something of a stalemate.

It has been widely reported that Arsenal have tabled an offer in the region of £12million for Arshavin, with Zenit holding out for a fee closer to the region of £15million – £20million.

This is what general director Maxim Mitrofanov had to say:

“The situation has not changed since Friday, which means Arsenal would like to pay only £12m, not one cent more, And we, at Zenit, are ready to discuss with them about maybe a better offer from our side.

We are ready to make a step forward to them, but they should do the same.

However, I have told the people from Arsenal we are ready to discuss a lot of things to make the situation easier for them.

They have a deadline, as I understand, until 26th January, because after that, they should have some time to get another player and I respect this position.”

It appears that neither Arsenal or Zenit are ready to budge from their valuation of the player. For me this is really an issue of perceived value. It is, of course very difficult to judge the true value of things and football players are certainly a shining example of this.

However, if Arsenal’s valuation of Arshavin is at a maximum monetary value to the club of  £12million, then they should not raise their offer. I’m not sure of Zenit’s position on the matter, but it does not appear to be as strong as they would hope it to be. Arshavin himself has stated his strong desire to come to Arsenal, and there are said to be no other clubs in the chase for his signing.

Furthermore, the remaining length of Arshavin’s contract and the clauses it contains means that if Zenit do not sell Arshavin in this window then the fee they are likely to recieve for the player at that later time is much lower than Arsenal’s current offer.

Here’s a rather lengthy but telling quote from Dennis Lachter, Arshavin’s agent.

“Unfortunately in this matter there is no movement, The sticking point is, of course, money and rather the totally unacceptable amount of Zenit’s demands for Andrei.

The position of the club remains unchanged and that is the reality that we have faced for a long time.

If the situation remains unchanged we will use Article 17 of the Fifa rules and buy out the contract of Andrei at the club, which could happen as early as November this year.

In that situation, Zenit would have to be satisfied with a much smaller amount than they are offered by representatives of Arsenal.

If Andrei becomes a free agent, he will get many proposals, from England, Italy and Spain.”

In the light of this, I think that Arsenal are right to stick to their guns with their offer of £12million, and only time will tell if Zenit or Arsenal budge from their positions and Arshavin becomes an Arsenal player.

What do you think? Is £12 million a good offer, or should Arsenal up their bid to seal the deal?

Let me know in the comments…

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 at 1:14 pm and is filed under Transfer News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Tags: arshavin, Transfer News