Arsenal

Ivan Gazidis confident of Arsenal future

By Jack Prescott, Rugby Editor | 15 November 2012

Arsenal chief executive Ivan Gazidis claims that the club will be able to compete with the biggest teams in the world in the coming years.

Arsenal chief executive Ivan Gazidis has claimed that the club will be able to compete with the biggest teams in the world over the next three years.

This season has seen the Gunners get off to their worst start in the Premier League era with just two wins from their first 11 matches. They have also failed to lift a trophy since 2005.

However, Gazidis believes that improved deals with sponsors will enable the club to boost its financial clout.

"As we look to the next two, three years we will have an outstanding platform on which to compete with any club in the world," he told BBC Sport.

"Now we are at the stage where some of the commercial deals that were tied into the construction of the stadium, and enabled us to take that first big step, will be renegotiated.

"When that happens, we will take the second big step forward and that will be comparable in magnitude to moving to the stadium itself. At times it's been a challenging project, but we will have catapulted ourselves into the elite clubs on the European scale and that, for us, has been what the last 10 years has been about.

"Very clearly, it will push the club forward and put us into the top five clubs in the world in revenue terms, which will be a fantastic position to be in."

Gazidis became chief executive at Arsenal in January 2009.