The Asian market is crucial for Premiership football. It contains a number of emerging and increasingly propserous countries with growing populations and an appetite for football. It is a key element in the growth of overseas television revenues. There are great opportunities for selling merchandise, even if counterfeiting is a problem. Up to now, Manchester United and then Liverpool have made the greatest strides in this market.
The Asian market is crucial for Premiership football. It contains a number of emerging and increasingly propserous countries with growing populations and an appetite for football. It is a key element in the growth of overseas television revenues. There are great opportunities for selling merchandise, even if counterfeiting is a problem. Up to now, Manchester United and then Liverpool have made the greatest strides in this market.
Now Arsenal have sought to appeal to this valuable market by signing the captain of South Korea’s national football team, Park Chu-Young. A £3m deal with AS Monaco is imminent. His transfer comes at the end of a summer in which Arsenal toured Asia for the first time. Previously opposed to leaving Europe for pre-season training, Arsene Wenger has spoken of the importance of capitalising on international markets.
As concerns grow about the strength of the injury hit Arsenal squad, the Arsenal Supporters’ Trust believes Wenger could commit £80m of the self-funded club’s money to transfer fees and wages in the last few days of the transfer window. Nobody expects it to be fully spent. A further constraint is Arsenal’s complex wage structure which topped out at £125,000 a week for Fabregas, which is well behind Manchester United and Chelsea and even further behind Manchester City.