Arsene Wenger says that the period immediately after Arsenal moved into the Emirates Stadium was “the most difficult” time in his life.
Arsenal moved into their 60,000-capacity North London home in 2006 after 93 years at Highbury having spent over £400million to finance the project.
The following years saw Arsenal slip off their perch as the Premier League’s dominant side, with the financial superpowers of Chelsea and Manchester City emerging as Wenger found himself forced to closely manage the wage bill as the club looked to pay back £260million in loan debt.
That meant star players including Cesc Fabregas, Samir Nasri and Robin van Persie had to be sold for a profit, with Wenger turning to the youth team in a bid to keep his squad competitive.
Whilst he achieved that with some aplomb, securing a top four finish and Champions League qualification in every season before this one, it is not a period he remembers with any fondness.
“In 2006 the most difficult period of my life started,” Wenger, speaking in an interview with BT Sport ahead of the Emirates FA Cup, said. “We had restricted finances, we had to pay back a huge amount of money and we had to sell our best players.
“We had to stay in the top, to stay in the Champions League and at least to make 54,000 people [attend]. There are many debates when you start building a stadium, how big can it be? It’s quite simple.
“At the time it was £4,000 a seat. You multiply that by 60,000 it’s £240million. Plus we had to buy the soil, all the businesses we had to buy out. It went to over £420m.
“We had to pay a huge amount of money back every year. That’s why we had to stay in the Champions League.”
Wenger has recently warned Tottenham that they will face an enormous challenge to remain competitive in the coming years when they move into their new £750m stadium on White Hart Lane whilst he claimed West Ham had “won the lottery” when they were announced as tenants of the former Olympic Stadium last year.
But both of those clubs are making the move in a financial climate far more accommodating to such investment, with the £8bn television deal having dramatically boosted Premier League coffers.
The broadcast revenue from the top flight also means Wenger is much more able to weather the storm of a season out of the Champions League, which Arsenal are facing for the first time since 1998 after they finished fifth behind Manchester City and Liverpool.
“Today the television money makes the weight of the Champions League much weaker,” Wenger added. “At the time it was absolutely needed.
“That was, for me, the biggest period of pressure between 2006 and 2014. If you told me today I’d do that again I would say ‘no thank you, I’ll leave that to someone else.’”