On this day in 2009 Ivan Gazidis, then of Arsenal, proposed a salary cap in the PL – just one of a number of attempts by clubs, the PL and Uefa to get club spending under control. As yet none of these has shown much sign of having any real impact, although the issue of Manchester City’s income and expenditure continues to exercise Uefa who are still working on the case of investigating whether the money the club received and then spent, was properly accounted for under Uefa regulations.
Here are the anniversaries…
2 July 1970: Steve Morrow born. He joined Arsenal just after his 17th birthday in July 1987 and went out on loan to Reading, Watford and Barnet, playing his first Arsenal game proper on 8 April 1992. In 2008 he returned to Arsenal as International Partnerships – Performance Supervisor, managing Arsenal’s international partnerships, including Colorado Rapids of Major League Soccer in the United States, BEC Tero of Thailand and Hoàng Anh Gia Lai of Vietnam, and assisting Arsenal’s academies overseas.
2 July 1977: Bob Wilson, the goalkeeping hero of the first Double season, re-signed for Arsenal as emergency cover, but didn’t give up his TV work.
2 July 1999: Steve Bould sold to Sunderland for £500,000. He had played 287 league games for Arsenal. He returned in July 2001 as youth team coach, became head of the under 18s, and then Arsene Wenger’s assistant.
2 July 2009: Ivan Gazidis proposed a salary cap in the PL. Alternative versions of this happened through Uefa’s FFP plan. The PL evolved just such a plan but it proved unable to stop Manchester City’s explosion in expenditure. Uefa started to water down its process in 2015 and failed to stop PSG. However Uefa returned to the problem in 2019 in relation to Manchester City’s finances.
2 July 2014: Ben Sheaf joined Arsenal from West Ham for an undisclosed fee.
2 July 2015: Ainsley Maitland-Niles loaned to Ipswich for the forthcoming season. He played 30 times for the club but was reportedly dropped after his mother made what was called an “X rated” phone call to the club. However by 2018 he was a full blown first team member.
