The Story Behind Arshavin’s “Slavery”

By: chris | August 21st, 2008

A couple weeks ago Andrei Arshavin’s agent went on a bit of a tirade, joining the masses suffering from skewed perception and labeled his client a “slave”. We all know Andrei, just like Cristiano Ronaldo, is not a slave – it was simply agent speak, more commonly known as “bullshit” – but we didn’t know exactly how far from a slave he really is. Know why he’s still locked in his cage at Zenit? Because he wants too much money. So it was a self-imposed slavery. Much better.

“Wenger was serious about buying Arshavin,” said Lachter in the Daily Express.

“If Andrei could have tempered his financial appetite, it was quite possible he would be playing at the Emirates right now.

Ah, financial appetite. That makes it sound so much better.

Hard to tell who’s the bigger jackass here: Andrei’s agent or Andrei. His agent, Denis Lachter, knew full well when he called AA a slave that the only reason he’s still chillin’ in St. Petersburg is because his client thinks quite highly of himself. Andrei is, though not alone, just a greedy bastard who wants his cake, your cake, their cake and he wants to eat it too, damnit.

Unfortunately for Andrei, the kibosh has been put down on his supposedly “imminent” move to Tottenham, who were seemingly only too happy to satisfy his hunger, just not Zenit’s. So out goes the chance to move to White Hart Lan and, in a couple years time, pull a Berbatov, whining himself into a chance to win some real hardware. Seems wherever a suitor is willing, the plug is pulled on the other end, leaving his future up in the air. A future which will surely be tragic if he doesn’t get that fat ass paycheck soon.

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j

Spectre - I understand he was looking for a deal to rival Frank Lampard's. As far as the transfer, the sticking point were the terms more than the amount. If they make it a straight deal (no incentives) with payment within a year, it'll happen.
spectre

Sounds like the transfer fee from Zenit was high. Still no info on the salary demands from Arshavin. Would it be a surprise if those were never released?
j

I mentioned this a few times however in a very brief summary, suitors weren't even close to the Zenit's valuation of £21.5m and they were trying to structure a deal where offers were heavy back-end loaded and laced with club and player incentives of payments stretching beyond the one-year norm. Basically clubs weren't even close to the asking price, wanted long payment terms on a price that wasn't firm.
Blue Devil Brad

I like your skepticism, spectre. It's always important to get both sides of any story. From what I've read, it seems like both Arshavin and Zenit were looking to make bank after his amazing showing at EURO, and in the Spurs case they were ready to compensate Arshavin with the salary he wants but Zenit wasn't happy with the transfer fee.

http://www.goal.com/en/articol...
This is the only story I could find quoting a figure - Arsenal was ready with 15 million pounds. We don't know how much they were asking for, but we know 15 mil wasn't enough. For perspective, remember Robbie Keane just went from Tottenham Hotspur to Liverpool for 20.3 mil.
spectre

Firstly, let me say that for Arshavin's agent to claim "slavery" was ridiculous and insulting to any of those who have been/are in reality, slaves.

That having been said...

Once again, I see a lot of writers throwing a player under the bus about being greedy. It's too easy. It's tired. A professional writer for a newspaper will never write that a club was too cheap (certainly if they're in the same country as the club), for fear of being blacklisted from the "free lunch" box. Many blog writers (because they lead wholly seperate lives in addition to their blogs) tend to take an amalgamation of opinions from various sources and cobble together their own opinion (as opposed to using inside sources) - leaving them spouting a line of thinking eerily similar to the company line the mainstream media totes. Usually their independence from media outlets allows them the freedom to differ, but on matters such as this (where most of the info is not made available to the general public), it is sadly not the case.

I have yet to see a writer divulge what exacly Arshavin was asking for, and compare it to other players of similar stock. Without this important piece of info - exactly the amount he was asking for - all we're left with is what the powerbrokers (i.e. NOT the players) want us to believe.

Now then, if someone can actually come up with the figures and the comparisons, and it's a patently absurd amount of money for a player who just recently shone brightly in a major tournament, I will be happy to admit that in this case I was wrong. All I'm asking for is thorough unbiased reporting.

I love the offside, and greatly respect the work those involved do to satisfy the appetites of so many readers with so many different opinions. Given that the vast majority (or all) do so without pay, I have no room to complain about the job they do, and if this comes across as such, my apologies. I am not a Russia fan, an Arsenal fan, a Zenit fan, nor a Spurs fan. I'm not even an Arshavin fan. I simply want, in matters both worldy AND soccer, a fair hearing with all of the facts presented before judgement is passed.
Michael

He just seems totally overrated.
Ted

I could not care less about all this money stuff. I want to see him go to the Prem, or another big league. In spite of all this bluster
he is a sublime player, and he is practically invisable playing in the
Russian league. I want to see him play.
Erika

The LA Galaxy should buy him like Beckham! I think if the Galaxy offered a contract similar to Beckham's, Arshavin would feel "liberated" of his chains, for sure!
steven

I'm tired of all this "slave" talk. Those over-paid diva's need to get their butts down th where slavery DOES exist and have them work a day in theri lives. Then we'll see who the slave is.