Arsenal, vile **** filth? Never...

[snarl]

Now, I'm sure they will wriggle clear again as they always do, with everything again being declared 'legal' and the people in the place to do something will again turn the other cheek as they are personal; buddies of that vile **** Dein.

But the club is a vile **** horde of *****, followed by ***** with no morals. That is all.

--------------------------------------------

AS SWEAT and tear-stained Londoners stumbled from their pubs and
barbecues on Saturday, looking just a little like those newsreel pictures of
First World War soldiers blinded by gas, it felt like a good time to ask a
few hard questions about football. Does it make us happy? Does it justify its
colossal demands on our national attention?

Is it, in short, "worth it"?

The answers, this week, were not in fact to be found in the AufSchalke
Arena, or any of the other places where Sven's torturers have recently plied
their trade. We need look no further than north London, and the story of how
an entire borough and democratic process was essentially taken over by a
football club.

Welcome to the new Emirates Stadium of Arsenal FC, due to open for its first
match in less than three weeks. Physically, the place is magnificent. It will
raise capacity at a stroke from 38,000 to 60,000, putting it in the very top
tier of British club grounds. In contrast to the miseries of Wembley, it was
finished on time and on budget.

But it has happened as it did only because the London Borough of Islington
has effectively transformed itself into the London Borough of Arsenal,
tearing up its own planning policies, ignoring the wishes of many residents,
refusing to hold the club to its promises, and making, we can reveal, an
extraordinary financial arrangement with Arsenal that could be seen to verge
on the corrupt.

The Standard has learned that the salaries of five Islington council
planning officers - the very officers who decided on Arsenal's planning
application - were not paid by the council. They were, in fact, paid by
Arsenal itself.

"It's an absolute disgrace," says Steve Phelps, a TV producer who has lived
nearby for 20 years. "It's extraordinary. It has to raise a big questionmark
over the independence of the council's decision-making."

Islington's director of planning, Graham Loveland, insisted that the
arrangement was made "completely without prejudice" to the council's
decision. But it certainly seemed to help matters.

Arsenal and their paid planners came up with a scheme for the council to
become, in effect, the Gunners' land acquisition agent, seizing other local
businesses under the council's compulsory purchase powers in order to pass
their land to the club.

Arsenal's chairman Peter Hill-Wood and his vice-chairman David Dein needed
more than £350 million to build the new stadium, money they did not have.
Desperate to keep the club in the borough, Islington agreed to seize much
more land than the stadium actually needed, then pass that land to Arsenal so
they could develop private housing to pay for the stadium.

The council also agreed that the club could build the new flats in tall,
profitable multi-storey blocks, even though Islington has a firm policy of
not allowing any building taller than 30 metres. Unfortunately, however, much
of the land which was taken for the new-build flats was already occupied by
other local businesses - just as important to the local economy, if rather
less glamorous, than football. Between them, these firms employed around
1,000 people, compared with 350 at Arsenal. Not any more. Even Mr Loveland
admits that not all the jobs displaced by the stadium will remain in the
borough.

Still, the planning agreement made with the club did include what Steve
Hitchins, then leader of Islington, described as "amazing community benefits,
revitalising the whole area".

There was to be a new sports centre in the new stadium to replace the
training hall in Arsenal's old Highbury ground, heavily used by community
groups. There would be major improvements to the local Tube stations, very
necessary with 60,000 fans instead of 38,000 to handle.

There would be a new waste treatment plant, to replace one on the site of
the new stadium. There would be "affordable housing". And there would be
parking underneath the stadium for supporters' coaches, saving the narrow
residential streets around from being clogged.

All this was written in as legal conditions of the planning agreement.

Gradually, however, the promised benefits have become rather less amazing,
with barely a squeak from Islington councillors. The sports centre was
dropped; Arsenal will now give £1 million to local sports facilities instead.
The coach parking was canned. The coaches will use the streets after all. So
will all the wouldbe Tube passengers; the Underground improvements, too, were
cancelled, although the club says it is still ready to finance them when TfL
decides what it wants. Two nearby stations will, for safety reasons, be
closed on match days, rather than just one, as now.

The new waste treatment plant did go up, although it was put right next door
to a council estate. (The old plant had been much further away from people's
homes.) The affordable housing is happening - also largely to be sited around
the rubbishdump, since you ask. Three hundred of the new "affordable" units
turn out not to be proper individual flats at all, but rooming-houses with
shared kitchens and bathrooms.

And as a proportion of the total build, the number of affordable homes is
small, around half the Mayor's 50 per cent target.

In the best bit, Arsenal's old Highbury stadium, just 7 per cent of the
flats will be affordable. The community sports hall in the stadium will
vanish - but there will be a private gym and swimming pool for residents.

It might not be fair to judge Arsenal by this meagre harvest. It is a
commercial business, obliged to maximise its profits. Its involvement with
local schools, community sports, young offenders and businesses is
substantial. It has donated more than £2.5 million to local and north London
charitable causes, and most local residents the Standard spoke to in the
streets around the stadium were proud of their new neighbour.

But dozens of local retailers, with the exception of the pubs and takeaways,
said they actually suffered drops in trade on match days.

"It costs us a fortune," said Dennis Paton, of Gulliford's greengrocers.

"Our customers don't come in because the pavements are jammed."

Butcher Chris Godfrey said: "It doesn't do anyone any good in business. Even
the pubs are going to lose out now because the club are going to do a lot of
the post-match entertainment inside the new stadium."

Arsenal says its project will create 1,600 new jobs, but most of them on
match-days only. Even Islington's Loveland admits that a council-commissioned
study showed "quite a mixed message" on whether Arsenal actually benefited
the community.

The leaders of Islington council would not be the first people to be seduced
by the glamour and excitement of top-class football. But like the rest of us
this week, they may land up, in the end, feeling just a little cheated.

[Jetfire]

Whatever.

I've seen very little evidence on various "Arsenal are corrupt" topics you have posted. It's all hear say and speculation and mostly scare mongering. Half of which is contradicted in the article itself.

Give it up and stop pretending your "moral high ground" is anything except blind hatred for Arsenal.

[snarl]

ahahahahaha

Read the paper - they're paying the wages of the ***** who allowed the project to go ahead!

For ****s sake man, if that is not corrupt, then what the [composite word including 'f*ck'] is?

Arsenal is bent, they've a lot of friends in high places that are happy to turn the other cheek.

[Impactor returns 2.0]

Good thing Dien got booted out the FA at last tho.

[snarl]

They're stil involved - I know a load of Spurs fans who just to make a point have been sending letters to the F.A. asking when Wenger is going to be pulled up on disrepute charges for stating openly and matter of factly that Martin Jol a liar.

The F.A. this week replied to one of them saying they are making an investigation - When it's a ******* open and shut case!

Funnily enough, they cc in Neil Warnock, as he is named in the letters.

He's not responded to my knowledge, guess he's not as classy as Gibson.

Arsenal are way dodgy.

They know the loopholes and have friends in high places.

[Impactor returns 2.0]

I love the way the way they always seem to get hold of african-french players and have contacts to that french-african football club which they send cash to but nothing can be proved... eyes wide shut.

[snarl]

They denied their ownership of Beveren for years, newsnight then dug up some dirt, the F.A. turned a blind eye.

They did [composite word including 'f*ck'] all about it basically.