Arsène Wenger

Huw Merriman Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

Arsène Wenger’s extraordinary record and longevity over 22 years and 1,235 games is not the main reason why I initiated the debate, Mr Speaker, but given that both you and I are wearing Arsenal ties, I thought that perhaps I could deliver some of the highlights of his record. In his first season he rejuvenated a fading team with his new ideas, and he won the Premier League in the following season. He repeated that feat in 2001 and 2002, before making history in 2003 and 2004 with his “Invincibles” team, which went through the entire season unbeaten. I believe, Mr Speaker, that that will never be seen again.

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Huw Merriman]

I have always had the greatest respect for the hon. Lady, but I now understand that she is an Arsenal fan, so my respect goes through the roof. I give way.

[Anna Turley]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s sentiment. My constituents would not forgive me if I did not remind him that during that “unbeaten” season, Arsenal did in fact lose to Middlesbrough in the Carling cup, although they were unbeaten in the Premier League. However, that season was absolutely incredible. I think there could be no better tribute to Arsène Wenger than the occasion when, during the “Invincibles” season, the Pompey fans at Fratton Park, despite having lost 5-1, were singing, “Can We Play You Every Week?”. That, I think, is testament to how widely respected and how glorious the football was that was played in that “Invincibles” year.

[Huw Merriman]

The hon. Lady is spot on. She hedged her bets beautifully by referring to her local side as well. She is absolutely right. I remember taking my sister to see that side. I believe it was when we had put five past Wolves. I remember turning to her and saying, “This is probably as good as it gets.” Sadly, that turned out to be the case, but at least I was there. I will reminisce a little more as we go on.

What I described earlier was, of course, the third Premier League crown, but Arsène Wenger also claimed seven FA cups, more than any other manager. While, sadly, the European Champions League eluded him—Arsenal were beaten finalists in 2006—qualifying for the Champions League in 19 successive seasons is another British record. That record would justify a debate in its own right, but it was Arsène Wenger’s commitment to the core values of British sport and society that led me to apply for the debate.

Some have asked why I have time to hold a debate of this type when the trains do not work in my constituency. I say to them that we in Parliament have plenty of time during the day to talk about the things that do not work, or could work better—and as you know, Mr Speaker, I spend a lot of my time doing just that—but it is also important for us to celebrate success and the contributions that people make, not when they have left us and gone to the great stadium in the sky, but while they are still with us. I hope that our constituents will connect with Parliament when it focuses on an activity that millions in this country enjoy. For them, it is not just a passion but a way of life.

Let me say, Mr Speaker, that you look resplendent in your Arsenal tie today. You are, of course, an enormous Arsenal fan. It was my good fortune to bump into you and to say that I was keen to hold this debate. I thought, for the reasons that I have outlined, that it would be fitting not only for me to apply for the debate, but for you to chair it. I am also delighted that the Sports Minister is with us. She is a Minister of many virtues. Her support for her football club is, sadly, the one stain on her great character: she is a Spurs fan. Sadly, there is no St Totteringham’s day for Arsenal fans this year, as indeed was the case last year.

[Mr Speaker]

There is no cure for it.

[Huw Merriman]

There is indeed no cure for it, Mr Speaker. We can only hope.

I am delighted to be opening the debate. I want to focus on a number of contributions that Arsène Wenger has made in different spheres. First, I want to touch on his vast input in making the game the financial export that it is for this country. While it is true that we do not export as much as we once did, football is one of the industries that we export exceptionally well. I believe that it is the fastest-growing export across the globe. A recent study revealed that the annual revenue from Premier League clubs had hit almost £5 billion, double the combined total revenue from the leagues in Italy and Spain. Premier League clubs contributed £2.4 billion to the Exchequer, and are responsible for the creation of 100,000 jobs in this country. The strength of their appeal abroad is demonstrated not just by the £3.2 billion of rights sold overseas, but by what will happen in the next three years. China, for example, is bidding 14 times the previous value.

I observed the strength of this export last weekend, when I was in the small African country of Djibouti—the 14th poorest country in the globe, where there is terrible poverty. The young boys and girls whom I met were not only kicking a football around with great joy, but wearing the shirts of the premiership clubs more than those of any other league. In particular, they were wearing a lot of Arsenal strips. I was there with UNICEF, supporting Soccer Aid in the work it does in countries like Djibouti.

With his brand of attacking football, there was a tripling of our global fan base across the world, and I would argue that a large part of the success and the money that has been put into the Exchequer is down to Arsène Wenger. I am delighted that the Leader of the Opposition, another great Arsenal fan, has joined us, and I would be happy, if it is not against convention, to take an intervention from him.

Arsène Wenger has also contributed to the changing culture and behaviour within sport. It was put very well by one of our former players, and a great hero of mine, Ray Parlour, who revealed the full extent of the horror of the once notorious drinking culture at Arsenal in the following way:

“I’ll always remember the first pre-season tour with Arsène Wenger. New French lads had come into the team. We worked our socks off and at the end of the trip Wenger said we could all go out. We went straight down to the pub and the French lads went to the coffee shop. I’ll always remember the moment Steve Bould went up to the bar and ordered 35 pints for five of us. After we left the bar”—

I am amazed he can still remember this—

“we spotted all the French lads in the coffee shop and they were sitting around smoking, I thought how are we going to win the league this year? We’re all drunk and they’re all smoking, and we ended up winning the double that year.”

Much of the reason for this end-of-season transformation is summed up by another Arsenal great, Lee Dixon, who said of Arsène Wenger:

“There is no doubt he changed the face of English football. He was the first. It was all him. His legacy is not only Arsenal based. It is English football-based because of where the game was when he came in and how clubs and players operated. The physiology side of the game, the social side, training—he came in and ripped up the handbook. Everybody said, ‘Who is this fella?’ and the next minute they were all copying him.

The advancements in terms of science and facilities and all the support available for elite athletes is testament to him. I truly believe he pushed the button to start all of that. It is easy to lose track of the fact he was the great innovator.”

And so he was.

The third point is how Arsène Wenger built our club in the modern era and balanced its books, rather than using the largesse of petrodollars and oligarchs to do so. In 2004, Arsenal not only won the third of Arsène Wenger’s premiership titles but, as we have mentioned, went the entire season unbeaten. Never one to rest on their laurels, Arsène Wenger and the Arsenal hierarchy recognised that to close the gap on the richer clubs around us, the club had to increase its stadium revenue.

Highbury, which gave me the greatest pleasure over my years as an Arsenal fan sitting at the clock end, had a capacity of only 38,000, half that enjoyed by our rivals Manchester United in 2006 at Old Trafford. The move to the Emirates Stadium was funded by the sale of Highbury to housing, increases in match-day and commercial revenue and, sadly, selling one or two of our best players each year, all to balance the books. It could be said that Arsène Wenger was the forerunner of former Chancellor George Osborne, with perhaps the difference being that Arsène really did balance the books.

Unfortunately for us, our rivals did not need to look at such sound economics to underpin their transformation because something else that we did not know about was afoot at that time: everything changed when Roman Abramovich arrived at Chelsea in 2003. Of course, he was not the first sugar daddy to arrive in English football, but he was the first who seemed to have and fund a bottomless pit. I recall our former vice-chairman, David Dein, capturing the scene when—[Interruption.] Great man indeed. When, as you may remember, Mr Speaker, Chelsea put in a bid for the great Thierry Henry, David Dein joked:

“Roman Abramovich has parked his Russian tanks on our lawn and is firing £50 notes at us.”

Fortunately, we did not sell Thierry.

Where Abramovich began, Sheikh Mansour at Manchester City continued, and others from the international playgrounds have joined in. Some owners paid for a plaything and some of those clubs paid for it by going to the wall—Portsmouth being one such example. West Ham did not even have to bother paying for a stadium at all, and I would contend that it barely pays for its stadium now. All this careful financial planning and prudent investment has been diminished by the flow of foreign cash, which could not have been foreseen. I am proud that the club that Arsène Wenger built washes its own face with the highest matchday revenue in the world and not, as he infamously put it, via financial doping from wealthy individuals based in countries with dubious records on human rights and worse.

Arsène Wenger’s fourth contribution was his ability to be the best of talent from abroad. We have embraced him and he has embraced us. It may seem hard to believe today, but when he took over at Arsenal, only one other premiership club had a foreign manager in place: Ruud Gullit at Chelsea. Arsène Wenger was the first foreign manager to win the league. In taking a great British institution and enhancing it with flair, ideas and panache honed in France and Japan, he has shown not only what talent from abroad can do to deliver change in this country but what our country can do to embrace those from abroad.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and congratulate him on securing this debate. As the MP who represents the Arsenal stadium—the old and the new—I have been through the pain and the pleasure of the building of the new stadium. Throughout the whole time that Arsène Wenger has been manager, he has ensured that Arsenal has made an enormous contribution to the local community. Arsenal in the Community has been very successful for local grounds and clubs all over the borough. I have never forgotten taking a large group of primary school children to the Arsenal stadium one evening, where Arsène Wenger gave them a very interesting talk about how he had learned English. He told them that they should all learn foreign languages in order to create a more generous and peaceful world. He has a wonderful ability to communicate with people of all ages and all footballing abilities. I think that the future of football has to be community based, with much greater fan participation in the running of our clubs.

[Huw Merriman]

I absolutely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I think it is fair to say that those words do not come out of my mouth often, but he is absolutely right about what Arsenal does for the community. It has always been a special community club. As the right hon. Gentleman will be aware, when we had violence in our stadiums in times gone by, all stadiums had fencing round the edge of the pitch, but Arsenal never did. It was the only club that did not have fencing, because it was always community based. It was also the first football club to become a Disability Confident club. It has always been a pioneer in its community, and it has also ensured great diversity. Our fans have always had that diversity, and it should therefore be no surprise that a manager should come from abroad and that we should embrace him as one of our own. I believe that Arsène Wenger is the best example of successful immigration in this country, and I would like to think that it is thanks to him that immigration is widely proclaimed as doing fantastic things for this country. I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman’s comments.

The fifth element is not so much a contribution as the part that I find so sad about the end state for our great manager. This relates to the challenges that many people now face from social media and the prioritising of the demand for instant results over time and reasonableness. Everyone has an opinion now, no matter how qualified or otherwise they might be, and complex technical analysis is now delivered in one word and a hashtag. As a traditional fan, I almost wonder whether football is now passing me by, when there is so much anger, menace and vitriol being poured out on social media. This cannot do anyone any good.

It saddens me that the latter years of Arsène Wenger’s reign coincided with the rise of social media platforms that were incredibly unfair to him and that, after he had delivered so much to our club, he should be subject to jeering at the railway station in Stoke-on-Trent, for example, with fans chanting “Wenger out” after everything he had done to earn their respect. I felt ashamed to be a fan of the club if those people were also professing to be fans. I worry that our leaders in sport, industry, public services and, indeed, politics are now subject to a 24/7 barrage of abuse in which they are told that they are wrong and everyone else is right. They are not allowed to have an opinion or to stand on their own record. What will that do to encourage others to take their place?

Despite failing with her political beliefs, my mother successfully indoctrinated me with a love of Arsenal that I have to this day. There are 100 million of us across the globe. Some have great notoriety: the Trump family, Osama bin Laden and—it gets even worse for the Arsenal PR team—Piers Morgan.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman did not quite say this, but I think what he was driving at is that there is sometimes a tendency for people on social media to volunteer their opinions with an insistence in inverse proportion to their knowledge of the subject matter under discussion. Do I understand him correctly?

[Huw Merriman]

Mr Speaker, you are absolutely spot on. I can think only of the words “Piers” and “Morgan” when you conjure up those sentiments. However, I am delighted to say that Piers Morgan is now a convert: I was contacted by “Good Morning Britain” and I understand that he is calling for an honorary knighthood for Arsène Wenger. That means that for the first time I find myself in agreement with Piers Morgan.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing the debate. I cannot believe that I am here, witnessing and enjoying the debate. It is important that we recognise Arsène Wenger’s contribution, not just to Arsenal football club and football in this country, but to football around the world. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that Arsène Wenger has been hugely successful not only in men’s football but in women’s football, and that Arsenal Ladies is the most successful women’s team in the land?

[Huw Merriman]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I have talked about Arsène Wenger’s managerial tenure, which has delivered great success. He has been a pioneer in the women’s game as well. Interestingly, again, we are now getting left behind by the money of Man City, but we are forcing everyone to compete.

I want the Minister for Sport to be able to respond, so, on behalf of 100 million Arsenal football fans, millions more fans across the world and all those in this country who admire success, dignity, class and devotion to an institution, I thank Arsène Wenger for everything he has achieved and I wish him even more to come in the years ahead.

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman very warmly and I call the Tottenham-supporting Minister for Sport.