By Ishola Adeleke, YeyeNews.com, November 28, 2021
The president of the Arsenal Supporters Club in Nigerian, Mr. Boniface Salihu, has said that their members have no interest in watching the UEFA Champions League anymore because the competition has lost its glamour. Boniface made the claim while answering questions from a YeyeNews.com reporter.
According to him, “Tuesday night football is no longer interesting. Many Arsenal fans now prefer to watch Telemundo and Zee world with their families rather than tune in to a champions league game. The competition has been stripped of its glamour”. Boniface further accused UEFA of doing nothing about the deliberate design of the English FA to keep Arsenal away from qualifying for the champions league.
“The FA deliberately design our fixtures so that we will be inundated with games towards the closing period of the season. It is always difficult to successfully prosecute those games because the team has a very lean squad with key players prone to injuries. While other major teams have big money owners who are willing to spend big to bring in players from abroad, Arsenal has continued to maintain its commitment to develop talents through the academy system. This commitment ordinarily should be rewarded. But it has obviously become a disadvantage that has prevented Arsenal from the champions league and has seriously affected the glamour of the competition. UEFA should find ways to bring Arsenal back to the competition to restore the flair and glamour of European football”.
But a staunch West Ham United supporter countered Mr. Boniface, accusing him of looking for a backdoor for Arsenal to enter European competition. “If your team is playing such fantastic and glamorous football as you claim, then they should play their way into Europe. But it seems the doors into the top six position have been shut against Arsenal. You have to accept the new reality – Arsenal is now a mid table team. But you can beg UEFA to consider giving your team a place in the Europa Conference League next season. Third-tier Europe won’t be too bad for a start”.
