From Tom Williams of Southampton on Football365’s letters page, definitely sounds like something very fishy going on over Theo Walcott, the conspiract theorists don’t circle around one man like David Dein this much without something going on now do they?

Does anyone know why this week’s England game was a ‘B’ international? Because there is a rumour going round the south coast that it’s because Arsenal would have had to pay us an additional 2 million quid for Theo if it had been a full international…

It’s a fact that we get a lot of money per international that Theo plays. I think you can find the structure of the deal online somewhere. At the end of the day, they’ll still have to pay us the money at some point, as he is clearly going to play plenty of internationals (the majority of England and indeed Arsenal fans won’t have seen him play, so just take my word for it…), but the reason they haven’t picked him for their first team is that they want to be sure about him before they have to pay us any more money.

In fact, I bet you he goes out on loan somewhere next season in a further attempt to put off paying for him. That human paraquat Redknapp has been sniffing round apparently. That would be almost too much to bear…

I’d like to know when it was decided that the friendly would be a ‘B’ international. If it was decided since it emerged that Theo would be in the squad, there is clearly something very dodgy going on.

I like most Saints fans was very upset when Theo went, and this has rekindled my rage. The FA need to do something to stop the likes of Arsenal raping smaller clubs, because that’s what it amounts to- what is effectively the non-consensual buying of our players. With Spurs and Liverpool apparently sniffing round our brilliant young defender Gareth Bale it is increasingly concerning.

What’s the point in having a kick-arse academy if your best youngsters are going to end up at other clubs before they’ve played a full season for you? It’s not our responsibility to provide players for the ‘big five’. Clearly though, nothing is going to change while snakes like David Dein are involved. Allegedly he also vetoed the possibility of Wenger being offered the England job. What a surprise.

What makes it worse is that if Theo makes an impact at international level, Wenger will claim all the credit, when he deserves none. It is unbelievable that when he was selected in the squad, the likes of Redknapp and Wenger were immediately basking in the reflected glory, yet almost no mention was made of our academy staff Georges Prost, Malcolm Elias and Huw Jennings (’Who?’ you might ask…).

We’re not whiter than white. We’ve essentially done the same thing, poaching players from Notts County, Oxford and others. Theo himself was briefly on Swindon Town’s books. It’s not really Arsenal I have a problem with- I admire Wenger’s crusade to win the title back using the rough diamonds he has ‘unearthed’. It’s the rule, whereby players can be transferred for a fraction of their true worth if they are under 17, that I am objecting to, and the obvious conflict of interest of having David Dein and his ilk effectively running the game.

No smoke without fire?

This entry was posted on Friday, May 26th, 2006 at 3:27 pm and is filed under Arsenal. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.