Arsenal are one of the biggest football brands in England. Due to that, it takes a lot to run Arsenal successfully. So who is in charge of the club at the very top?
Who is the CEO of Arsenal? Vinai Venkatesham is the CEO of Arsenal. He has worked for the club in various roles since 2010, becoming CEO in September 2020.
Vinai Venkatesham is a name that not a lot of Arsenal fans will be family with. That is despite Venkatesham having a big impact on the club over the last 13 years. Having never been massively involved in the football side of the club and more focused on the business side, not a lot of people have heard of him before.
The Indian-British businessman was educated at Oxford University, helping him to become a chartered management accountant. This moved him on to becoming a summer associate for a consulting firm before he began his professional career.
Having begun his career as an oil trader, Vinai developed his business knowledge in a three-year stint with Deloitte. He began using that business knowledge in sports in 2006 when he became the commercial manager for the London 2012 Olympic Games. This also helped Venkatesham to build a reputation.
This helped him to become Arsenal’s Head of Global Partnerships, similar to the job he had done successfully for the Olympic games. After three years he became the Director of Global Partnerships and Business Strategy, a job he held for just six months before becoming the Sales and Marketing Director for the club.
Venkatesham got a major promotion in 2014 when he became the Chief Commercial Officer of Arsenal, becoming part of the Arsenal Executive team, having been part of the management team since joining. He became the team’s Managing Director in 2018, holding the role for just over two years.
It was in September 2020 that Venkatesham was promoted to become the team’s, Chief Executive Officer. Today he works alongside the board of directors who are mostly the club’s owners as well as Chief commercial officer Juliet Slot and Director of football operations Richard Garlick.
While he comes from a business background, Venkatesham does still have some say on football activities. Transfers are one of his major responsibilities, with Venkatesham being one of the men involved in those decisions. He is also involved in other financial decisions that may have an impact on football activities.
Who manages Arsenal?
The Arsenal manager job is not an easy one, especially for any manager who has had to follow Arsene Wenger. So who is the current manager of Arsenal?
Arsenal are managed by Mikel Arteta, who had been in charge of the club since December 2019. Arteta actually first joined the club as a player, being signed by the Gunners from Everton in 2011. Arteta would finish his playing career with Arsenal, retiring in 2016 and immediately looking at management.
He decided that instead of staying with Arsenal and taking over their academy, he would become an assistant coach for Pep Guardiola at Manchester City. Guardiola learnt a lot from Pep and just two years after taking the job he was linked with the role at his former side Arsenal.
Mikel Arteta became head coach in December 2019, having been the replacement for Unai Emery. In the first couple of seasons, fans were very split about the success of Arteta as the team’s coach. He took over at a difficult time for the club, going through a lot of change on the pitch with a group of exciting youngsters.
The Arsenal fans who wanted to give Mikel Arteta more time have been proven right in the 2022/23 season. Arteta has coached Arsenal to be easily the best team in the league and in pole position to claim their first Premier League title since the invincible season of 2003-04. Arteta has been a brilliant manager for Arsenal.
Arsenal CEO salary
We don’t know exactly what the salary is for Arsenal CEO Vinai Venkatesham as the figure has not been released since he became the club’s CEO in 2020. What we can do is take a look at the historical figures and assume that it has remained pretty consistent since then.
We would assume that the Arsenal CEO’s salary is around ÂŁ3 million per year. When the CEO was Ivan Gazdis it was reported that the salary for the Arsenal CEO was ÂŁ2.62 million, which was around five years ago. It is likely that this figure has increased slightly over the last few years.
So if you were to land the job as CEO of Arsenal, it would likely also come with a salary of over ÂŁ3 million. This figure is simply an estimate based on past data, with not a massive amount of reports on the subject in the last few years.
Who are Arsenal’s famous fans?
Arsenal being one of the biggest clubs in the UK means they have a very big fan base. Some of those fans are very well known.
YouTubers KSI and Logan Paul are some of the most famous Arsenal fans, who have also gotten involved with the club. They recently formed a partnership with the team through their drink brand Prime, becoming the club’s hydration partner.
Arsenal certainly have a lot of famous fans from the entertainment industry. Idris Elba is one of the big names who has been to the Emirates many times. The list of famous entertainment stars who are Arsenal fans also includes Will Poulter, Keanu Reeves, Val Kilmer, Jamie Foxx, Danny DeVito and David Schwimmer.
Sportspeople Mo Farah, Lewis Hamilton and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce are also Arsenal fans. Anthony Joshua and Billy Joe Saunders have got to be two of the hardest-hitting Arsenal fans. NBA stars Joel Embiid, James Harden and Carmelo Anthony are Arsenal fans.
Arsenal being based in London means they also have some royal fans. Prince Harry is an Arsenal fan, having been to the Emirates in the past. Queen Elizabeth 2nd was one of the most famous Arsenal fans in the world.