Former football agent John Smith has been lifting the lid on Arsenal’s complicated dealings with Zenit Saint Petersburg in the build up to the purchase of Andrey Arshavin in 2009, in his book The Deal.
According to Smith, Arsenal had only wanted to pay £7.5m for the player but interference from Russian president Vladimir Putin meant the fee was eventually doubled.
Zenit were the attacker’s boyhood club and run by the president of Gazprom – who are believed to answer directly to the head of state. Putin allegedly had no intention of letting their star player go cheaply in January 2009.
Smith said, as reported by the Independent: “Arsene was involved in every step. Every conversation with Arsenal was based around how Arsene was feeling and things he thought they could do to bridge the gap. Arsene was totally in control on that environment.”
It took a total of three months to get the deal completed as the Gunners didn’t want to step outside of the moral compass they are famous for. Luckily for them, that area of transfers were among Smith’s many skills.
He continued: “Technically, we might not have been given permission [to speak to Arshavin]. But that’s my job for a club and player at any given time. I am the bridge that the club can’t cross. In most cases of employment exchanges in any walk of life, the potential employee and employer have had some sort of prior connection.
“There has to be a person ready to break the conventional ethical boundary of not pinching other people’s staff and actually make contact. So we do sometimes facilitate that in football.”
Although the deal was also completed in part to 30% Arsenal shareholder Alisher Usmanov and his Russian business connections, although the only person aware of that was former board member David Dein, as per the Smith’s book.
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