Arsenal to shatter pay ceiling by offering £150,000 a week for Van Persie to stay



By Rob Draper for The Mail on Sunday

Arsenal striker Robin van Persie says he will sit down and talk to the club over a new deal at the Emirates - but not until the season is over.

The north London club are expected to offer an unprecedented pay deal, thought to be worth more than £150,000 a week and far in excess of what had previously been expected, in a bid to keep the striker next season.



The offer is likely to include a signing-on fee of about £5million in addition to a wage packet of more than £130,000 a week, which would comprise a record deal for an Arsenal player - though the club are aware that Van Persie's decision will not be wholly down to the money on offer but by the future prospects of the club.



In the money: Robin van Persie looks set for a big pay-day

The striker said: 'There have been a lot of stories, generally contradictory ones, about my contract situation recently so I’d like to make it clear.



'There’s nothing complicated or sinister - the club and I have both agreed to speak at the end of the season and see how things stand. The boss, Ivan Gazidis and I are all comfortable with it.



'I need all my focus to be on football - on captaining this team, improving every day, doing extra work on the training pitch and preparing for the very busy schedule of fixtures we have.



'If I look down the list, there’s not much time to sit down and think about anything else! For me, this is a time to play football and not speak about personal things. All of my energy needs to go on getting this team where we want it to be this season.'



While Arsene Wenger's immediate concern is to rein in rivals Tottenham on Sunday - in the process ending a bleak spell that saw Arsenal's dreadful 4-0 defeat by AC Milan followed by a 2-0 FA Cup exit at Sunderland - the Van Persie situation is the most pressing problem facing the club this summer as they attempt to rebuild.



Yet it is Sunday's clash at The Emirates that is currently preoccupying Van Persie.

He said: 'Tottenham are above us for the first time in many years, but it's in our hands to change the way things are going, win the game and start moving closer to them.'



If Arsenal seal a Champions League qualification, there is a feeling that they can reconstruct a great team, with Borussia Dortmund star midfielder Mario Goetze and Cologne's Lukas Podolski likely additions.



Podolski is keen to join while Arsenal are currently in pole position to sign Goetze. But that could all change if they do not make the top four.



There is the prospect of losing not just Van Persie, but also Alex Song who, though he has two years left on his current deal, has resisted efforts by Arsenal to sign a new deal.



Target: Dortmund's Mario Goetze is on Wenger's wanted list

While Wenger's transfer fund for the summer is rumoured to be £50m, it is in fact less.

'It is not true [it is £50m],' admitted Wenger.



The figure is thought to be closer to £40m, and that also has to include the wages of any new recruit, meaning that in the best case scenario, that would only cover the signing of Goetze.



And even that headline figure could be in doubt if Arsenal are not in the Champions League, given the £45m deficit there would be in the accounts

Keen on move to London: Lukas Podolski is on Arsenal's radar

Podolski and any other additions would be reliant on the club moving a long list of unwanted players off the wage bill: Andrey Arshavin, now on loan at Zenit St Petersburg, Nicklas Bendtner, Denilson, Carlos Vela, Marouane Chamakh and Ju Young Park.



Wenger does recognise that he has to embark on major reconstruction after the end of his 'project' last summer, when Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri left.

'I believe there was a rupture in the building of our team,' he said. 'Last year we were very close to the top but then there was a rupture, losing Fabregas, Nasri and Jack Wilshere [through injury]. We could compete with anybody in Europe with that midfield.'



Though Arsenal will announce impressive financial figures on Monday, which will show they made about £113m in the six months to November - an increase of about 15 per cent - with profits of about £45m, that will mainly have been generated by the dispiriting sales of Nasri and Fabregas.



Despite the healthy financial model, Arsenal are struggling to keep up with the likes of Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Barcelona and Real Madrid.

'Somebody told me that there was a newspaper who printed the wages of the biggest players in the country,' says Wenger.

'We cannot compete with that so we have to be realistic.'



Wenger remains frustrated with subsidies City and Chelsea receive, which he believes distort the market and therefore obscures his good work at Arsenal.



'What is unbelievable is that we run the model that should be absolutely normal and we look crazy,' he adds. 'That is crazy. People will do anything stupid but we are not crazy, we are all right. We spend £1 if we make £1 and [then people say], "What are they doing?" That is what is absolutely mad in our world. The whole world is bankrupt because of that.'

Headache: Wenger has a tough balancing act

But even Arsenal's careful financial strategy has seen the w age bill edge perilously close to danger.

The Arsenal Supporters Trust, who have been hugely supportive of the board and Wenger, say that Arsenal's wages are 'sizeable' and there is a 'clear inefficiency in wage spend'.



They might have had in mind the new deal given to Johan Djourou at about £50,000 a week.



Arsenal's wage bill is £130m, compared with £189.5m at Chelsea and £152.9m at United.



The most recent figures for City's wage bill show it at £133m in 2010 - by now it is likely to be pushing towards £200m.



But the most painful figure for Wenger, given his attempt to be prudent, is that Tottenham, 10 points head on Sunday, have a wage bill of £91m with, many would say, a much stronger squad, albeit supplanted by the subsidised loan of Emmanuel Adebayor.



