Building the Emirates Stadium was Arsenal’s way of closing the cash gap to the rich clubs – then came Roman Abramovich followed by a broadcast treasure chest that lessens the need for king-sized matchday revenues

London was bright and sunny on the final day of the season 12 years ago. Arsenal’s players performed a cancan on the pitch at Highbury as fans chanted: “We are unbeatable.” After an iffy first half, they had won 2-1 to complete a full season without defeat in the league.

In the aftermath of that glorious achievement there was giddy talk of an assault on Europe as the final frontier. Alan Hansen described them as “the most fluid, devastating team that the British Isles has seen”.

“Is this,” asked Amy Lawrence in the Observer, “as good as it gets?”

Yes. For Arsenal, yes, it was – although few seemed to think it then.

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Kevin McCarra in the Guardian was one of the few to sound a note of caution, wondering whether the move to the new stadium might damagingly curtail transfer spending.

Some seven miles to the south-west Claudio Ranieri watched his Chelsea side beat Leeds United 1-0. His fate, though, was already sealed. He spoke about saying goodbye “just in case” but, as he performed a slow, emotional lap of honour and fans chanted his name, everybody knew he was on his way.

“I am sad,” Ranieri said, “because I would have liked to have finished the job. But the foundations and spirit at this club have been laid and the gap on Arsenal is closing. My players here are strong and fighters. They can improve – without me. There could be a good future for Chelsea.”

There was.

But what no one considered then was the possibility that Ranieri might win the Premier League title before Wenger, that the next time he returned to Stamford Bridge, on the final day of the season, 12 years later, it might be to pick up the trophy. And certainly no one thought he might do it with the team who had lost at Highbury that day, a side whose relegation had been confirmed two weeks earlier: Leicester City.

The reasons for Arsenal’s stagnation are legion and have been discussed at length, from Wenger’s increasing conservatism to the supposed over-niceness of this group of players, but look at the sweep of the past 12 years and it becomes apparent there is also one huge underlying issue. That is not to say it is the only explanation or the even the most significant explanation, but in answering the question of how Arsenal got from there to here, it is the broadest in scope: Arsenal, through no real fault of their own, found themselves on the wrong side of football’s economics.

There will not be much sympathy for the club with the seventh-highest revenues in the world – and nor should there be. But that does not alter the fact Arsenal were caught out by an irony of timing. The move to the Emirates was necessary; no one can seriously dispute that. Highbury, for all its charm, was cramped – so much so that Arsenal had that two-year flirtation with playing Champions League games at Wembley because of the way Uefa advertising regulations ate into the already low capacity.

Twelve years ago a bigger stadium with all the revenue it opens up seemed the only way for a club to improve its position in the financial hierarchy. Moving to the Emirates in 2006 was supposed to be Arsenal’s way of closing the economic gap on Manchester United and the European elite. But in 2003 Roman Abramovich arrived and revolutionised the finance landscape of English football.

Abramovich was not the first sugar-daddy but he was the first with a wealth that, in the context of the time, seemed bottomless. All that careful husbandry, the plotting of a new investment, all diminished by an outside event that could not have been foreseen. It may seem normal now that foreign billionaires should buy Premier League clubs but it was not then. What Abramovich had begun, Sheikh Mansour continued.

Still, better to have the new stadium than not to have it, which is why West Ham are moving, why Chelsea and Tottenham are redeveloping, why Liverpool are expanding Anfield and why Everton would like to move.

Arsenal do benefit from it, clearly. According to the latest Deloitte report, no club in the world makes more in matchday revenue than Arsenal, albeit still less than both broadcast and commercial streams.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Arsenal moved to the Emirates Stadium in 2006. Photograph: David Price/Arsenal FC via Getty Images

And that is where the timing has been cruel. Just as Arsenal have paid off enough of the debt on the stadium to hold on to their best players and to make a transfer splurge possible – however much Wenger still seems to oppose it on principle – broadcast revenues have increased to the point where stadium revenue seems, if not irrelevant, then certainly less significant than it was.

The £5.1bn domestic television deal will ensure the club that finishes bottom of the Premier League next season picks up around £100m, with the top sides getting more than £150m. Add in £1.1bn per season in overseas rights to be divided and the £100m Arsenal make in matchday revenue is less important. It is not just the precise numbers; it is the scale. If everybody is very rich, being very, very rich is a comparatively small advantage, particularly in a world in which the A+ stars generally prefer to play in Spain.

The project that was set in motion when Arsenal decided to move to the Emirates has been hit by two economic developments that could not realistically have been foreseen. That is not to say there are not things Arsenal and Wenger could have done better but equally the background is significant in considering how Wenger’s and Ranieri’s futures were not as they seemed likely to be a dozen years ago.