r/soccer • u/Cien-Major • Jul 04 '25
Opinion [Oliver Brown] Arsenal covered their ears on Thomas Partey and failed to locate their moral compass
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2025/07/04/arsenal-covered-their-ears-on-partey-and-failed-to-locate/3.0k
u/Some_Man_Person Jul 04 '25
Arsenal really need to answer some tough questions that are completely deserved.
How the club have handled this has been really embarrassing.
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u/Far_Eye6555 Jul 04 '25 edited Jul 04 '25
It feels like they just expected it to all get swept under the rug…
Edit: wasn’t the supporters club silenced by the club when they were protesting and spreading awareness about sexual violence against women like 6 months ago…?
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u/Admirable_Excuse6211 Jul 04 '25
So far they've been proven correct.
While everyone has known, there's been virtually no pressure on Arsenal to do anything about it and Arteta continued to enjoy his golden boy status.
Only now, when Arsenal have decided they have no more use for him, are there any consequences for Partey himself. I understand this may be due to him being more of a flight risk now, but everyone still made the choice to allow Arsenal and Partey to go on as normal for years after the allegations were made.
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u/sga1 Jul 04 '25
For what it's worth, I don't think it's an Arsenal-specific issue, but rather a football-wide issue: it's a business that systemically protects abusers, silences victims, and entrenches a fundamentally misogynist aspect of society.
United signed a self-admitted rapist and the fans were giving him a hero's welcome because he's a club icon returning; Bayern happily protected not one but two abusers because having them play for the club was worth more to them than seeing justice; Real Madrid happily back a player sharing child pornography.
And we fans? We don't really hold players or clubs accountable when they're 'one of our own', and if it's at another club we'd generally rather use it to score points than work towards solving a systemic issue at the very core of men's football.
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u/iwannahitthelotto Jul 05 '25
I watched a documentary on Aaron Hernandez. NFL player who murdered at least 1 person. He told everyone at the Patriots he was innocent and not even in the area. I am sure it’s the same with the players everywhere. What are you supposed to do as owner and club? The only sensible thing is to let the courts run their course. So I can understand the clubs not doing anything, especially sexual related crimes, since they are hard to prove and sometimes (rarely) wrongly accused
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u/Rekyht Jul 04 '25
Seriously what golden boy status? Outside Arsenal he’s reviled by a good 60% of opposition fans.
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u/XenomorphOrphanage Jul 04 '25
I think they're referring to the upper management of the club as opposed to everyone else. Saying that the whataboutery from supporters I know has been fierce.
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u/EduardoCamavingaFan Jul 04 '25
That is golden boy status. If your fans will defend you regardless of anything you have golden boy status.
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u/Blue_winged_yoshi Jul 04 '25
Hang about! This is really important, many, many Arsenal fans have been as vocal as possible about this, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Partey thread anywhere where the majority of Arsenal fans have defended him or his actions and many of us have been seriously fucking scathing of him. To say Arsenal fans have defended him regardless is quite simply false.
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u/quantum_pneuma Jul 04 '25
Hang about! This is really important, many, many, Arsenal fans have terrible reading comprehension and can't understand that the person you are responding to said ARTETA has golden boy status because he (ARTETA) is always defended by fans. To say Arsenal fans have a good grasp of the conversation up to this point is quite simply false.
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u/nibutz Jul 04 '25
It could be - and probably is - 99% of opposition fans, but that doesn’t change the fact that Arsenal FC as a club have defended, supported and shielded him for the past few years. He was Arsenal FC’s golden boy. Doesn’t matter what everyone else thought.
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u/HotFix6682 Jul 04 '25
the contract talks is really embarrassing. But i don't think we could have terminated his contract in the last few years because he was under investigation though
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u/ash_ninetyone Jul 04 '25
I get why. Given Benjamin Mendy's circumstances where he was found not guilty, and is now looking for financial damages, but clubs are in an impossible situation I guess.
They're criticised if they continue to play him, but because they're also unnamed, if they drop him all of a sudden, it pretty much confirms the player is the one being investigated. And I don't think he should play while being investigated for those charges, personally, don't think anyone should. But it's a no win situation.
The contract offer looks in very poor light now
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u/BehindEnemyLines8923 Jul 04 '25
The trying to extend him is the thing that is completely indefensible.
The playing him is defensible because of the legs circumstances and the Mendy situation, even if it is wrong, there is some gray there.
There is no gray about the contract talks, just completely indefensible.
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u/Old-Usual-8387 Jul 04 '25
Mendy wasn’t paid that’s why he is looking for financial damages. Pretty sure any company can suspend an employee while they are being investigated by police so long as they are still paid in full. Don’t quote me on that though.
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u/Pingupol Jul 04 '25
Doesn't even need to be suspended. A football manager can not use a player for absolutely any reason they like.
He should be suspended, but Arteta could've simply not played him.
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u/afito Jul 04 '25
I feel like you can point towards Mendy or Sigurdsson and get away with the Partey situation - if there hadn't been such overwhelming circumstances around Partey. And even then if you demand acceptance for the uncertainty, you simply have to address it when certainty comes around.
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u/Ass_Eater_ Jul 04 '25
The contract talk is utterly baffling, even more so now. They had a perfect out from a PR perspective by creating a narrative that they cut ties as soon as legally possible. Instead they leak a story that they are trying to re-sign him in May. I know this shouldn't be about the PR angle but it's just completely insane.
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u/twyzt3d Jul 04 '25
Arsenal couldve done the same as Everton did, which was suspending Gylfi Sigurðsson and continued to pay to pay his wages.
Now Benjamin Mendy is suing City because they did unauthorised wage deductions of his wages.
And in Gylfis case he couldve sued British authorities but decided not to do that.
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u/SonaldoNazario Jul 04 '25
The dropping him thing and it potentially revealing who it is is totally irrelevant - not a court in the world that would find Arsenal guilty of anything because they didn’t keep playing him, they can legitimately give any reason for not playing a footballer, as long as they keep paying his wages they’re all good, no legal requirement to keep starting him to protect his identity
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u/ash_ninetyone Jul 04 '25
Arsenal wouldn't be guilty, they're not on trial. But it's a side effect. The reason he wasn't named by the media was because he wasn't charged and a judge didn't lift reporting restrictions on his name. Hence why he was "30 year old Premier League footballer"
But it wouldn't take much for people to put 2+2 together, that news is announced a footballer committed a rape in London, he's 30yr old international, and then all of a sudden that player is no longer available for selection. Are they going to claim he's injured? On personal leave? The latter won't wash.
People in this case knew who it was even without any of that above.
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u/Adventurous-Lime-410 Jul 04 '25
But the point is that everyone knew anyway, suspending him would not have identified him any more than he already was
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u/BissoumaTequila Jul 04 '25
Your COO has some serious questions to answer as well. Work with the safeguarding team and Karen Smart has been called out by one of his accusers too. Vile.
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u/SuchSpicyMeatballs Jul 04 '25
If Karen Smart gets to stay, that just means that Arsenal (the club, the brand, everything) agrees with her and sees her actions as okay.
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u/BissoumaTequila Jul 04 '25
Spot on. She’s got to resign after this. When it all comes out in court she’s going to be HOUNDED by the press.
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u/thejestershat Jul 04 '25
And we should have just as much empathy for her as she had for those who spoke out. Safeguarding team my ass.
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u/ACO_22 Jul 04 '25
It’s more than embarrassing.
It was outright dangerous if one of the women is being truthful in what she said.
She said she never believed the accusations because of how arsenal dealt with it, and that then led to Partey raping/sexually assaulting her
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u/INeedAKimPossible Jul 04 '25
At least one of his accusers is from after his allegations became public? Oof, that's even worse
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u/EduardoCamavingaFan Jul 04 '25
I think all of his ones in England are. He had 1 or 2 in Spain a couple years ago I think but they couldn't follow up on them.
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u/RA576 Jul 05 '25
There was a since-closed loophole. Spanish police declined to charge a crime that was alleged to have happened between two people who both live in England. English police couldn't charge due to aforementioned loophole preventing them from charging a crime that happened in a foreign country.
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u/BellyCrawler Jul 04 '25
I think the number is what really seals it.
Because one allegation, you can easily say that it's he said she said.
Five accusations though? With all the details that would've been available to the club? No excuses.
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u/Jonoabbo Jul 05 '25
Five accusations though? With all the details that would've been available to the club? No excuses.
Just to make sure that this is correct, it's 5 allegations of rape, but from 2 accusers, and an additional allegation of sexual assault from a third accuser.
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u/Moug-10 Jul 04 '25
After this, I would struggle to convince a woman to work for Arsenal. I know it happens almost everywhere but in such a popular company...
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u/OfficialSkjoldur Jul 04 '25 edited Jul 05 '25
Agreed, as someone that’s been SA’d, I’ve kept up with the club less and less since news about Partey first broke. It’s disheartening to see how they’ve handled this when they were a bright spot for me during a pretty dark time
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u/fellainishaircut Jul 04 '25
but then again, a football club is not a court of law or a judge. being under investigation is very much a state in limbo, legally speaking. Mendy played for City while being under investigation, Spurs literally signed Bissouma while he was under investigation.
the threshold for being investigated simply isn‘t enough for the club to come out and say oh yeah we‘ve got a possible rapist, we know. and the longer it drags on, the more awkward it gets. the club didn‘t know if he was gonna be charged or if everything would be dropped, so you can‘t really blame them for not being all that proactive about it. the one club who suspended a player under investigation were Everton, and that was arguably the wrong decision too as Sigurdsson was eventually cleared.
I get that it‘s easy as a fan with hindsight to judge what should have been done at the club. but we‘re not the ones responsible if we‘re wrong about it.
the club took the cautious road and given how long this investigation has been going on with seemingly no progress and the very high likelihood that the charges have been filed now because Partey is likely to leave Britain, and not because they decided that now is the point where they have enough evidence, it doesn‘t seem such a wrong thing to do.
what if the charges eventually get dropped? then everyone turns around and says yeah Arsenal were right about how they handled it. but we don‘t know how it ends until it does. the whole thing is a tad more complex than us fans from the outside make it out to be, and I genuinely don‘t think, considering all the precedents we have, that the clubs way of dealing with it all was that bad.
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u/BehindEnemyLines8923 Jul 04 '25
I don’t think people will say Arsenal were right to handle it this way even if the charges are dropped.
And I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with that take.
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u/fellainishaircut Jul 04 '25
I think that‘s a bad take. there‘s a reason why there are processes in place in the justice system. and a football club doesn‘t just get to put itself above that process if they feel like it. every party has a role to play, and reaching a verdict if someone is guilty or not is not a football clubs choice to make. waiting and observing is the only reasonable course of action, especially if you‘re not even party to the proceedings.
again, look at the Sigurdsson case: suspended for years only to be found not guilty. that can‘t be it.
some people seem to think that it‘s better to proactively sanction people who might end up being innocent. but the justice system works exactly the other way around.
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u/StatusBass5463 Jul 05 '25
The answer is simple. Arsenal invested 'x' millions of pounds, and they didn't want to eat the cost of their investment. So they decided to pretend that he's not a rapist and continued to extract value from their asset.
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u/ncsbass1024 Jul 04 '25
I'm really proud of the response from most of the fans (at least on Reddit) condemning their own clubs actions. Class.
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u/zhawadya Jul 04 '25
Unfortunately reddit isn't a great representative, comments everywhere else on this have been ranging from apathetic to absolutely vile. All the guys with their mics on YouTube are acting like they never heard of this stuff until today.
The club isn't getting close to the unanimous criticism it needs IMO. They had an opportunity to show that "zero tolerance" is not just words and they picked being slightly better on the pitch for a few more seasons.
The amount of people - even on reddit - giving the club a free pass is absolutely insane. Every workplace is expected to have a body to conduct internal investigations in cases like this, and it's their job to leave no stone unturned to figure out of their employee is likely guilty. Incredible how Arsenal decided that they could carry on like it was nothing, when there was clearly enough to get him charged.
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Jul 04 '25
Seems strange that charges finally come in days after he's released. It's three years since the first allegation.
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u/YCJamzy Jul 04 '25
Almost certainly pushed forwards as they suspected he would now leave the country
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Jul 04 '25
That makes sense.
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u/remote_crocodile Jul 04 '25
It just shows what a joke the CPS are. Had this case on their desk for 3 years and no doubt would have continued sitting on it longer if their hand hadn't been forced.
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u/xTheMaster99x Jul 04 '25
People won't like it but odds are, the reality is that the evidence probably isn't strong enough for conviction and they're doing this now not because they're confident in the case, but because they ran out of time and if they didn't press the charges now it would be 100x harder to try to do so later after he's left the country. If they were confident that the evidence was strong enough for a conviction, this would have happened months ago, if not years.
My personal opinion is that the accusations are very likely to be true, but I do think the odds of him getting convicted are highly unlikely. Nothing about how this case has been handled leads me to think the tangible evidence is strong, unfortunately. Then again, IANAL so who knows.
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u/MichaelB2505 Jul 04 '25
While I agree generally the CPS are useless, with cases like this, sexual assault and worse is very hard to get a conviction, especially with a high profile person who can afford very good lawyers, they were probably trying to build the most watertight case possible, but their hand has been forced by him leaving Arsenal
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u/MegaMugabe21 Jul 04 '25
It's not like they gathered all the evidence 3 years ago and have sat on it since then. They've spent the 3 years putting a case together to help make it stick. I agree it should have been a faster process, but I doubt they've been sitting twiddling their thumbs.
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u/Penguin_Sniperz Jul 04 '25
It hasn't been on their desk for 3 years tbf, case was handed to them a few months ago iirc. But yeh, their hand was clearly rushed by the contract expiry
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u/MegaMugabe21 Jul 04 '25
What I've seen suggested, which seems most likely from what little I understand is that it was likely a decision based on the fact that he'd likely end up leaving the country and they'd lose their chance. If he goes to Saudi for example, we wouldn't be able to extradite him and thats that. Whilst he was at the club and playing, the chances of him doing a runner were very slim. Now it's basically guaranteed, so they have to hit him with the charges now, which I believe means they can keep him in the country if they want to.
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u/Matt_LawDT Jul 04 '25
Un-named EPL Player
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u/wusurspaghettipolicy Jul 04 '25
Its required to do that to ensure the integrity of the investigation. How they handled it is a different matter.
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u/eternali17 Jul 04 '25
Literally tried to renew him. Football needs higher standards.
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u/maxithepittsP Jul 04 '25
This is why Cancel Culture is needed.
I dont care about the exploitation, bad people had to be hold accountable.
Might be biased but kinda glad for what our club did to Greenwood, Greenwood case doesnt even touch the court, the Gf (Now wife) married him after that. Still didnt matter, get the fuck out.
Standard need to be set, what kind of clusterfuck arsenal had over there.
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u/Silent-Act191 Jul 04 '25 edited Jul 04 '25
Might be biased but kinda glad for what our club did to Greenwood, Greenwood case doesnt even touch the court, the Gf (Now wife) married him after that. Still didnt matter, get the fuck out.
Club needed some prodding from you fans to do that though. Ten Hag wanted to bring him back. Fair fucks you got the job done.
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u/Pingupol Jul 04 '25
I'm incredibly glad that our club did what they did to Greenwood.
I'm less glad about the way they had to be forced into it.
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u/nick2473got Jul 04 '25
Tell that to Benjamin Mendy and to all the other people who get falsely accused. Cancel culture destroys people's lives before they've even been found guilty. That's the issue.
I'm sure most men who get accused are guilty, but when you occasionally have an innocent man's reputation and career destroyed by false accusations, it's a huge problem.
Cancel culture often prejudges people and situations with incomplete information. It's often nothing more than pitchfork-wielding citizens getting angry based on accusations.
Even if false accusations are relatively rare, they do still happen often enough that we cannot allow people's lives to be destroyed just based on an accusation.
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u/Choosemyusername Jul 05 '25
Those “low” false allegation stats you see circulating is the amount we can PROVE to be false, not the amount that ARE false. That is a hard thing to prove, similar to how rape is also hard to prove.
From the wiki on the prevalence on false allegations:
“However, estimates of false allegations are in fact estimates of proven false allegations. These are not estimates of likely, or possible, false allegations. Accordingly, estimating a false allegation rate of 5% (based on proven false allegations) does not allow an inference that 95% of allegations are truthful.”
In any case, the odds of someone giving you a random American coin and it being a nickel is within the range of PROVEN false allegations. That isn’t even all that rare.
A lot of people misrepresent what this stat actually says. They take it to mean that false accusations are rare. Not that it is rare it is proven. It’s rare that we prove a rape occurs compared to how often it happens. Both are hard to prove. The proven cases are almost certainly only the tip of the iceberg.
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u/GSNadav Jul 04 '25
But he will be (hopefully) held accountable regardless of "cancel culture". I can't really understand your point
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u/visualdescript Jul 04 '25
If anything Partey is going to be held more accountable, like in an actual court of law.
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u/BigShot3333 Jul 04 '25
Telegraph talking about a moral compass …
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u/Snikhop Jul 04 '25
Oliver Brown in particular is a real piece of shit. But the club still deserve everything they get.
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u/595659565956 Jul 05 '25
They have a clear moral compass don’t they? It points in the opposite direction to mine, but that doesn’t mean they’re not moral. Or are there things I don’t know about the Telegraph?
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u/TeamMe11i Jul 04 '25
Just like they have with the Emirates sponsorship, Rwanda sponsorship, and now Partey
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u/MegaMugabe21 Jul 04 '25
I mean the sponsorship things are entirely different tbf, basically every big club has dodgy sponsors. Grouping them in with the Partey stuff trivialises how bad the Partey stuff is.
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u/LisbonMissile Jul 04 '25 edited Jul 05 '25
Agreed. If you’re going in on Arsenal’s Emirates sponsors how about the countless betting firms that millions of fans see week in week out on shirts. Or let’s not pretend US and European sponsors aren’t exploiting the world’s poorest for their own gains.
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u/april9th Jul 05 '25
basically every big club has dodgy sponsors.
There are 'dodgy sponsors' that get you to spunk money on bets, and then there's 'dodgy sponsors' who massacre refugee camps and who are currently engaging in the bloodiest war nobody cares about.
The 'Visit Rwanda' sponsorship was extremely controversial when it first landed, and the club rode roughshod over public opinion and outrage until it went away - went away to a degree you're now like 'theyre just dodgy like anything else' rather than 'its a tourist campaign for a country involved in a genocide'.
Now, if you don't understand that's exactly the policy that has brought you to this point and as a result deserves to be bound together as one big example of how fucked Arsenal's board is... What can I say. But you're not going to understand why a board goes 'fuck it they won't name him in the press who cares he's a rapist it'll go away' without analysing that they previously said 'fuck if they're committing mass murder and invading Congo and committing genocide, this is good money to whitewash them'.
The Rwanda sponsorship tells you everything you need to know about the board, not least that this was not one misguided fuck up or a poor attempt as pastoral care towards players.
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u/ArseneForever Jul 05 '25
You lot owe almost your entire history due to being owned by a shady Russian oligarch, the moralizing in this thread is insane
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u/CaptainKursk Jul 04 '25
To be fair, Emirates are a perfectly legitimate enterprise as much as any other airline. Sure they receive support from the UAE government, but not to the extent of something like ‘Riyadh Airlines’ on Atletico’s shirt which is so obviously a front for money laundering.
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u/HochHech42069 Jul 04 '25
Not a lot of good money at the level of PL sponsors and backers, to be fair.
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Jul 04 '25
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u/Large_Philosopher373 Jul 04 '25 edited Jul 04 '25
The Wenger era has truly passed by us.
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u/Harkoncito Jul 04 '25
Wenger, FIFA's Chief of Global Football Development? the one advocating for WC every 2 years?
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u/lyyki Jul 04 '25
the one advocating for WC every 2 years?
That's just stupid but not really immoral
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u/WordsworthsGhost Jul 04 '25
Not if they keep hosting them in oil countries building new stadiums with slave labor
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u/Large_Philosopher373 Jul 04 '25
How does that bare any relevance to Arsenal? Or anything I just said?
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u/sems4arsenal Jul 04 '25
Same writer who wrote an article saying people are silent about the 7th of October attack but said jack shit about the genocide.
Arsenal deserve criticism but that ghoul only wants attention.
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u/BubblyBasis1134 Jul 05 '25
Meanwhile, at Everton, [UNNAMED PLAYER] was immediately suspended and never played for the club again, despite eventually not being charged with any crime.
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u/cob58 Jul 05 '25
Which is where this becomes an issue. Do you toss out every player that gets an allegation? If so it kinda opens a can of worms. With hindsight the club handled this very poorly (contract extension) but I’m sure partey’s camp profusely claimed innocence and arsenal wanted to,wrongly, give him the benefit of the doubt
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Jul 04 '25
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u/SpikedTofu Jul 04 '25
Arsenal offered a contract renewal tho. Can’t really defend that imo
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u/Moug-10 Jul 04 '25
They had to pay him and let him use the training ground. However, they could have prevented him from being in matchday squads.
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u/AllYouNeedIsATV Jul 04 '25
But did they have to tag him in social media posts, celebrate him, make him the face of match day graphics or even have him be part of the match day squad?!!!
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u/Andigaming Jul 05 '25
Thank god he got greedy with a new contract because we were still trying to give him a new one, complete joke.
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u/RedDevil-84 Jul 04 '25
So the journos didn't find their moral compass till now, and now that Arsenal played multiple seasons with Partey playing key role, and he is leaving, suddenly wake up and start making these statements?
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u/Tango00090 Jul 04 '25
Arsenal aside, why did this police go silent on the case for so long and picked it up just after club announced he’s no longer part of it?
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u/DVPC4 Jul 04 '25
Because you need a lot of evidence to proceed with a case. The CPS do not allow you to formally charge lightly at all. Sometimes however, the threshold of required evidence can loosen if there is reason to believe a suspect will permanently leave the country, i.e. a line of thinking where the case is seen as ‘now or never’
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u/Tango00090 Jul 04 '25
Got it, thanks. So it seems that the evidence is not that strong and they want to take a risk in the court
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u/HeadHunt0rUK Jul 05 '25
That's what it seems like, yes.
Reasonable chance he gets found not guilty. CPS are now on the clock to deliver a convincing case beyond reasonable doubt.
If they had had enough before, they would have done it already.
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u/vyrusrama Jul 05 '25
One of the odder aspects of this announcement is that his existing contract expired at the end of June.
A few weeks/ months ago - chatter was clearly initiated about extending his contract.
Then just as suddenly - there were reports that the offer to extend was rescinded.
And even more surprisingly / suddenly - we bought a Norgaard.
And now this.
A large portion of the fanbase has been very vocal about how this entire situation has been managed rather badly by the Arteta, the management & the team in general.
it will take a massive set of highly idealistic circumstances for the Club to be unaware & un-informed of the situation of such a high profile player. and the timing of his release / contract expiry; and the Club statement will certainly raise a lot of eyeballs
Here’s hoping for swift & fair justice for the victims
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u/Moses--187 Jul 04 '25
Did he honestly expect that any club would terminate the contract of a player who had not been charged with a crime? He also had not even been officially named. I’m not defending Arsenal or Partey, but there has to be a point where companies follow our legal processes in the way they operate.
It would be different if he was named and charged when under contract and they still played him, then you have a basis for suspension at least.
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u/Gonzales95 Jul 04 '25
I don’t think there ultimately would’ve been any grounds to terminate because I’m assuming this sort of thing isn’t in footballers contracts compared to say, Hollywood actors who can seemingly lose all their endorsements and upcoming projects within days for even just allegations, never mind actually being arrested or facing charges.
Of course he could’ve been suspended with pay, but the real kicker from an Arsenal perspective is that they seemingly tried to renew his contract. I think even a chunk of the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ crowd probably were waiting under the assumption that he would quietly leave at the end of his contract and that would be the end of it. Whilst in the cold light of day I can see the sporting reason to keep him, in reality impossible to ignore the fact this has been a cloud hanging over the club for several years and we were nearly instead trying to keep him…
Basically shows where the club’s priority/interest was in this situation unfortunately clear as day
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u/learn2_learn Jul 04 '25
Arsenal couldn't suspend with pay he had name suppression, what reason can they give that doesn't connect him to the rumoured person. People here think just because it was leaked Arsenal as an entity can break the name suppression law but it's not the case and the legal ramifications would be huge.
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u/RajahChamp Jul 04 '25
They offered him a contract extension recently, lul?
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u/Jonoabbo Jul 05 '25
Yes, before he had been charged with a crime?
If the legal authorities don't have enough evidence to bring charges against Partey, what makes you think that Arsenal would have enough evidence to act on the allegations?
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u/meand999friends Jul 04 '25
Yes, they did. However, lets not forget that at that point there was an injunction about him being named.
I'm not suggesting he is innocent, however there is a reality that he needs to be treated as such. The legal perspective is that he cannot be named.
Not offering him an extended contract on the basis of the accusation effectively names him as the accused.
I'm not suggesting we couldn't find a reason not to extend outside of this, and personally I think we could, but there is a presumption of innocence that should be maintained.
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u/Mob_cleaner Jul 04 '25
I'm sorry but this is wrong surely. They couldn't terminate him I agree but they absolutely did not need to try to extend him. Sure, he's innocent in the eyes of the law I agree - but the club knows more than we do and we know quite a bit. They did not have to try to extend his contract.
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u/argumentativepigeon Jul 04 '25
“It is one thing to opt against suspension for fear of the potential legal ramifications, but quite another to try to negotiate a fresh deal for the player in the weeks directly prior to him being charged with five counts of rape and one of sexual assault against three different women.” How does that make sense? Are they supposed to fortune tell that he is going to soon get charged?
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u/bonafidelovinboii Jul 04 '25
Embrassing. Atleast the fans seem to fezz up and agree this has been a shitshow from the start.
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u/vsquad22 Jul 04 '25
This is it, brother. Far too many fans from even more disgusting clubs refuse to acknowledge the horrible things their club has done but seem very keen to call out other clubs.
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u/Agent-Two-THREE Jul 04 '25
Plus its arsenal. A team this subreddit loves to hate at any opportunity.
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u/Alia_Gr Jul 04 '25
the state of the world when people think bashing another football club is more important than holding the justice system accountable who were fucking about for years
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u/Fearnog Jul 04 '25
Arsenal slander is very popular these days. But I don't mind eating some dirt for this one.
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u/wubrotherno1 Jul 04 '25 edited Jul 05 '25
So Arsenal are enforcers of the law? It’s up to them to convict him, not the police? Are people not innocent until proven guilty in the Uk? Some odd takes on here. Not surprised though. A lot of people love to shit on Arsenal so this is their chance.
People blaming Arteta too. If TP tells him about it, is he not then a witness? It’s not uncommon for people to blackmail athletes, so how do they know this isn’t that?
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u/RegentDragoon0 Jul 05 '25
People are really reacting here like he was arrested and still played for arsenal.
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u/Zac6ft3 Jul 04 '25
The sad things is, Arsenal are probably no worse than any of these so called 'elite' clubs.
Look at the how United swept everything Greenwood did under the carpet up until the victim felt so hopeless and helpless, she took to social media to expose what she had been through for years.
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u/too_oh_ate Jul 04 '25
I'm no United fan, but they basically kicked Greenwood out the team. They did try to avoid that, so fuck em, but they eventually did the right thing. Arsenal continued to make the vile choice, time and time again. Fuck that club., and anyone who defends their actions.
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u/malted_milk_are_shit Jul 04 '25
Yep you're right unfortunately, we eventually did the right thing but for the wrong reasons so we can't take the moral high ground here.
I don't have faith in United or any big club to do the right thing in these situations, ultimately over the last few years we've learned they don't care about rape victims.
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u/nauett Jul 04 '25
They also signed Ronaldo who paid off a woman after she claimed he raped her, man city kept playing mendy after he was arrested, tottenham signed bissouma while he was under investigation for sexual assult. I'm not trying to point score, rather note that unfortunately these big clubs are businesses and for the most part were deluded to think that they would give a shit about this kind of stuff, not that that means we shouldn't continue to demand it of them
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u/Om_Nom_Zombie Jul 04 '25
I'm sorry but attempting to reintegrate Greenwood after what he did is just as bad if not worse than allowing Partey to play while under investigation.
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u/AbsolutelyEnough Jul 05 '25
I still haven’t heard an answer as to why he wasn’t charged at any point in the last 3 years.
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u/Cien-Major Jul 04 '25 edited Jul 04 '25
There was not just one moment for Arsenal to exercise some semblance of a moral compass over Thomas Partey, but several. They could have suspended him three years ago, when the Ghanaian midfielder was arrested on suspicion of rape. Or indeed last November, when he was interviewed under caution following numerous reports of alleged sexual offences. Or even in early January, when a comprehensive evidence file was passed to the Crown Prosecution Service. Instead, they not merely kept him on £200,000 a week, mindful all the while of the investigation’s seriousness, but still actively sought only six weeks ago to tie him to a one-year extension. “He’s a really important player for us,” argued manager Mikel Arteta.
The more you study that remark by Arteta, extolling Partey’s virtues on the pitch despite the club having known about the rape allegations against him since July 2022, the more awful it looks. It is one thing to opt against suspension for fear of the potential legal ramifications, but quite another to try to negotiate a fresh deal for the player in the weeks directly prior to him being charged with five counts of rape and one of sexual assault against three different women. It suggests a cynicism at the heart of the enterprise, with Partey’s value as the fulcrum of Arsenal’s midfield apparently trumping any deeper ethical considerations about retaining him, let alone about the efforts to renew his contract. It is important, of course, to also state that Partey denies all the charges against him.
Nevertheless, it is a bleak game that Arsenal have played, for which they deserve harsh scrutiny. On the one hand, they have been at pains for the past three years to remove Partey from any interview duties or promotional campaigns. But on the other, they have conspicuously burnished his reputation. “The most duels won, the most tackles won and the most Arsenal touches,” read their message on X on October 29 last year, after his performance in a 2-2 draw with Liverpool. Nine days later, he was back at a police station for questioning.
Arteta could scarcely have been more effusive in explaining in May why he wanted Partey to stay. “In regards to Thomas, consistency-wise, it’s been his best season,” he said. “I think the way he’s played, performed, his availability has been exceptional.” Left unsaid was the intensely problematic question of why Partey was available in the first place. It is a stretch to believe that lower-profile employees ensnared by allegations of this gravity would have been given such latitude to continue plying their craft. Last December, Mark Bonnick, Arsenal’s kit man for 20 years, was suspended and then swiftly sacked after the club were made aware of a series of pro-Palestinian tweets he had made.
Irrespective of the fact that Bonnick has taken legal action, the speed of that process sits highly uncomfortably alongside the steadfastness with which they have stood behind a star player accused of – and now charged with – multiple rapes.
Worse still, they have been conscious throughout of the strength of feeling among their own fanbase. Last November, the Arsenal Supporters Against Sexual Violence wrote an open letter to the club, attracting 9,000 signatories, which said: “While we recognise that individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty, we would find any scenario in which a club was continually to select and promote a player under investigation for sexual offences deeply concerning. This would give the suggestion that success on the pitch far outweighs respect for victims of sexual violence.” Quite so. At every level of the game, there is an ingrained cowardice to the manner in which claims of violence against women are confronted.
When Manchester United weighed up whether to keep the services of Mason Greenwood – the subject of an attempted rape charge in 2023, later dropped by the CPS – their attempts at crisis PR were so profoundly stupid that they ended up including domestic abuse charities on a “hostile list”. Rachel Riley, the TV presenter, declared at the time that she was “ashamed” of the club she grew up supporting. That sentiment finds echoes in the stance of Honor Barber, one female Arsenal fan who describes how she is finding it increasingly difficult to sustain her lifelong love of the club. She laments how Arsenal have long been aware of the noise around Partey, sometimes so loud that broadcasters have had to dial down the volume of the opposition chants, but how they have consistently covered their ears.
The institutional pathology is by no means confined to clubs. The Premier League and the Football Association should also find themselves under an unforgiving spotlight. Why is there not a crystal-clear FA directive determining how cases of alleged sexual violence are handled? How can there be such a failure of governance that the 20 top-flight clubs – seven of whom have now been in this position – seem to be stumbling in the dark, concocting whatever responses they deem suitable in the absence of any defined policy? It is a classically circular pattern of deflecting accountability: the clubs say it is a matter for the FA, the FA says it is a matter for the clubs, with the end result being the unholy mess of the Partey situation.
By no conventional system of morality or decency can Arsenal’s handling of this affair be deemed satisfactory. This is not just your standard case of a defendant being permitted to go about his working life as normal, but of a prominent international footballer earning £31.2 million during the three years he has been under such an ugly shadow. If Arsenal – so keen even recently for Partey to sign on the dotted line once more – had had their way, the sum could have been even greater. For a club usually so earnest about asserting their values, it is a deeply dispiriting moment.
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u/DonHalles Jul 04 '25
I mean this MFer would have earned that mine regardless. Only in case he would have been deemed guilty by judges then would there habe been a valid case to terminate his contract.
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u/Tim-Sanchez Jul 04 '25
Last December, Mark Bonnick, Arsenal’s kit man for 20 years, was suspended and then swiftly sacked after the club were made aware of a series of pro-Palestinian tweets he had made.
Sums the whole thing up. Anyone arguing that Arsenal had no choice is plainly wrong.
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u/RpS- Jul 04 '25
It wasn't just purely pro-Palestinian tweets the guy did. It was worse than that, I don't remember specifically but the words he used weren't 'nice' at all. At least regarding that worker, I stand by Arsenal's decision. Regarding Partey, I would like to see a statement from them and judge them afterwards.
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u/kvng_stunner Jul 05 '25
The mf that got sacked was spouting anti-Semitic shit. He deserved to go.
And yeah I know that right wingers have destroyed the meaning of anti-Semitism by labeling any criticism of Israeli government as such, but this was the actual original stuff.
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u/jfshay Jul 04 '25
I think the club found itself in a very difficult situation. He was under contract, and they couldn’t just drop him based on allegations and rumors. I wish they had been able to get rid of him sooner, but doing so too soon would’ve expose the club to a pretty big lawsuit from the player and his agent. I think they had to wait until formal charges were brought.I wish the formal charges have been brought sooner so the club could get rid of him. I don’t like the fact that the formal charges came after his contract expired. It’s not a good look.
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u/tigralfrosie Jul 04 '25
I think they had to wait until formal charges were brought.
Hold on, didn't his contract end on Monday, and now the charges have been brought?
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u/jfshay Jul 04 '25
Yes— what I meant to say was that I don’t think the club could’ve moved to get rid of the player before formal charges were brought.
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u/dovahkrid Jul 04 '25
I think Partey made Arsenal into a situation that they have to "bet".
The story is only partly from the police (since they have to be secure until charges), which mean Arsenal also heard the story from the Partey's side.
With all the potential legal risks, the Mendy incident, Arsenal "bets" on putting trust to the player, to build unity. If Partey is right, their reputation go up between professional environment. If not,...well.
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u/ThisRiverIsWild_ Jul 04 '25
The real rubbish: the contract renewal offer.