The Day Vladimir Putin Forced Arsenal To Pay Double To Sign Arshavin

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00:00Vladimir Putin is a determined man. The Russian president is willing to do all it takes to get

00:04what he wants. And the same can be said for his involvement in football. Putin is no passive

00:09spectator. If a transfer bid involving his boyhood club doesn't suit him, he's ready to intervene.

00:14And that's exactly what happened when Arsenal tried to secure the services of Andrei Arshayev

00:18in 2009. Vladimir Putin has a reputation for being fearsome in business, fearsome in diplomacy,

00:24fearsome full stop. And Arsenal felt the full force of that in 2009. As the winter transfer

00:29window approached to a close, the club entered talks over signing Andrei Arshayev, the golden

00:34boy of Russian football at the time, and the relevation of Euro 2008. But negotiations between

00:40Arsenal and Arshayev's club Zenit St. Petersburg hit an impasse following an intervention by

00:45Vladimir Putin. In his 2016 autobiography, The Deal, super agent John Smith, who notably represented

00:51Maradona, wrote that Putin was disappointed by Arsenal's offer. According to Smith, Arsenal didn't

00:57want to spend more than £7 million to acquire his services. But Putin valued the attacking

01:02midfielder at £15 million, double Arsenal's evaluation. And it would be for this reason

01:07that negotiations dragged on until the very last day of the 2009 winter transfer window.

01:12Arsenal were forced to up their offer. Officially, the move cost Arsenal an initial £12 million,

01:18with £3 million to be added in the form of performance-related bonuses, meaning the total

01:22outlay reached, you guessed it, £15 million. In an attempt to smooth the situation over,

01:27Arsenal even invited Zenit to take part in the Emirates Cup the following summer. Was it really

01:32Putin's intervention that caused the transfer to double in price? Well, of course it was. For what

01:36reason would we have to lie? Especially when it concerns a man with such a scope of influence

01:40as Vladimir Putin. In any case, it's intriguing to note that Arsenal have never done business over

01:45a player with Zenit again. You may be asking how or why Putin got involved. Well, as we know,

01:51Putin is an omnipresent figure in Russian daily life. But what some might not know is that Zenit

01:56is his boyhood club. For Zenit, he's even willing to dip into his own pocket. He offered hundreds of

02:02plane tickets to Zenit fans so they could cheer on the Russian national team at Euro 2012. But that

02:06only explains half of his affiliation to the team from St. Petersburg. You see, Zenit is owned by Gazprom,

02:12a Russian energy firm. And guess who owns a majority stake in Gazprom? The Russian government.

02:17Even if in 2009, Putin had already passed the baton of presidency onto Dmitry Medvedev,

02:23he was still the prime minister. So in some ways, you could say Putin was a Zenit shareholder at the

02:28time in which the deal took place. I'm happy to have signed a long-term contract at Arsenal,

02:32and I hope to finish my career here. During his time with the Gunners, he had some stellar moments,

02:37notably scoring four goals in a game against Liverpool. But despite scoring 31 goals and providing

02:4246 assists over 144 matches, Arsenal expected a little more from the man that finished sixth

02:48in the 2008 Ballon d'Or. He would subsequently return to Zenit before finishing his career in

02:53Kazakhstan. It's possible that Arsene Wenger regrets signing the Russian as Arsenal were in a period of

02:58transition at the time. The club were embarking on their first repayments after the costly Emirates

03:03stadium build. So there you have it. That's the story that links Vladimir Putin, Arsenal, and Andrei

03:09Arsavin. But one question remains. Who has been Arsenal's worst ever signing? Let us know in the comments.

03:33No.