Arsenal may have cost themselves up to £36m for failure of agreeing to new contracts with their two most valuable players Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil last summer as both players are now believed to be demanding £250,000-a-week contracts because of Brexit.
With Santi Cazorla also nearing the end of his contract – which expires at the end of the season, both Özil and Sanchez are out of contract in 2018 and the club have already identified the pair as priority targets for new long-term contracts that will run until 2020 but it appears the Arsenal hierarchy have been hit with negotiations setback as regards the Chilean and the German.
According to The Times, Arsenal will reopen contract talks once the pair return from the current international break, but their demands of £250,000-a-week stand at £70,000 more than what was discussed last year and as The Times explain, there are three crucial factors in play that is behind the hefty demands.
Two reasons could – and should – have been expected by Arsenal, with the time left on their deals reducing towards the feared one-year mark where the prospect of a free transfer begins to loom, and also the rate of inflation in wages across the Premier League due to the new television broadcast deal that came into effect at the start of the season.
The third reason though will not have been expected by the club, with June’s Brexit vote resulting in a large decline in the value of the pound. When talks originally began last October, the pound was valued at €1.38, while its post-Brexit vote value has reduced to €1.13.
The change in currency valuation could have serious ramifications for all Premier League clubs signing players from abroad, with those holding large assets and families abroad set to ask for higher wages.
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