Ian Wright has blamed former Arsenal Chief Executive Ivan Gazidis for the mess the club finds itself now in as far as player contracts are concerned.
Among the recent turmoil that Arsenal has had to deal with is the expected departure of Aaron Ramsey in the summer. The Welsh international has already signed a pre-contract agreement with Juventus and will join on a four-year deal. That follows the recent exits of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to Liverpool and Alexis Sanchez to Manchester United. Wright believes that Gazidis is all but responsible.
Gazidis left his position as Arsenal to take up his new role as AC Milan’s CEO.
“Gazidis has slipped off to Italy and left Arsenal in a terrible mess in respect of contracts what he’s done. I’m not sure Ramsey could have turned down a deal like this. He’s just another player that got into a situation where he could run the contract down. When you consider what they have given out to Aaron Ramsey [from other clubs] they [Arsenal] just couldn’t afford to keep Ramsey alongside the players they’ve got at the moment with the contracts that they are on, unfortunately. It comes down to mismanagement. We can’t get away from that we are losing a great player and it’s a great shame.” Wright told Football Daily Podcast.
Gazidis became Arsenal’s CEO 10 years ago 2008 and was replaced by Vinai Venkatesham and Raul Sanllehi when he exited.
