Sports
Arshavin’s move to Arsenal confirmed
Published 03 February, 2009, 20:29
Russia most wanted footballer, Andrey Arshavin, has officially become an Arsenal player after English Premier League confirmed the transfer deal on Tuesday.
The football soap opera concerning the striker's move lasted for more than six months, but finally saw a happy ending.
After lifting the UEFA cup with Zenit Saint Petersburg and winning a bronze medal at Euro 2008 with the national team, Andrey Arshavin said: “Never again”, meaning he will never play football wearing a Zenit jersey.
And that's when rumours concerning his transfer started sprouting like mushrooms.
Arshavin made his choice of club perfectly clear after he was seen sporting a Barcelona hat at practice.
Back then, the price for the Russian star striker was € 25 million. But amid the world financial crash plus the clearly heightened price tag, that deal fell through almost immediately.
Another London club, Tottenham Hotspur, also made an offer but were still far from the asking price.
This is when things really got interesting to some and annoying to other football fans.
At one point last year, media headlines claimed Arshavin was traveling to London to take care of “personal matters”. And those were followed with so called witness accounts that put the Russian footballer at the Spurs and Arsenal training camps at the same time.
Well, those who had their money on Arsenal guessed right. Andrei Arshavin signed a deal with the gunners until 2012.
The transfer amount varies from € 13 to € 16.5 million euros at this point.
But one thing seems almost certain, he will wear the number 23 in red-white gunners uniform.
“On the one hand I think Zenit made it clear that quality players from Russia will be sold at an adequate price and not for pennies. On the other hand I believe that the negotiation process should not go to such an extreme timeline where the parties are forced to hold on until the last second of the last hour,” Evgeny Ginner, President of CSKA Moscow football club, said.
Andrey Arshavin could make his dream debut for Arsenal as early as February 8.
The gunners will be playing their city rivals Tottenham Hotspur, the club which recently acquired another Russian star Roman Pavlyuchenko.
Pavlyuchenko has already won the hearts of his team's fans, but Arshavin still has to walk that road.
“Andrey is the man, who has a great desire to try himself on a new – higher – level. I know him for a long time. If it was the money he wanted he would have stayed at Zenit. But his dream was to play football in a different atmosphere. I wish him all the luck,” Vitaly Mutko, Russia’s sports minister and former Zenit president, said at a media-conference on Tuesday.
Communists call Arshavin a traitor
While most Russian fans are happy for Andrey Arshavin, who has fulfilled his dream, the Communist Party of Saint Petersburg has called the player a traitor for signing a contract with a club from a NATO country.
“This is a moral betrayal, the actual escape from his home city of Leningrad [Saint Petersburg’s name during Soviet times] and the team beloved by all of the citizens in the days of a grave economic crisis, when the audience go short on food to get tickets for Zenit matches,” Sergey Malinkovich, Chairman of the party’s Central Committee, said.
“Arshavin exchanged his talent for cash and will now lackey Gordon Brown at private parties,” he added.
Malinkovich also encouraged the fans to forget about the traitor and find new heroes who were “modest and with dignity”.
