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Arsenal’s third consecutive summer tour of the Far East is starting to take shape with the club confirming that Arsene Wenger’s squad will take on the Indonesian national team at the at the Gelora Bung Karno in Jakarta.
The showpiece fixture, scheduled for either 13/14 July, will represent the first time the Gunners have played in the country since 1983 when a squad including the likes of Charlie Nicholas, Pat Jennings, Kenny Sansom and David O’Leary took part in three end of season friendlies with funky looking cocktails in their hands.
Speaking about the decision to visit Jakarta, Arsenal’s chief commercial officer Tom Fox (who does get about a bit doesn’t he?) revealed:
“Everyone at Arsenal, the players, Arsène Wenger and all the backroom staff are looking forward to coming to Indonesia after 30 years away.
“We know that Arsenal enjoys fantastic support in Indonesia, with over 1.3 million fans connected to us by Facebook alone, and we look forward to giving our loyal fans the chance to see their heroes in action.
“We are also looking forward to learning more about the country’s rich culture and history.”
Last summer Arsenal took a travelling party to China, Hong Kong and Malaysia as the club continues to consolidate their ties with the region. Further 2013 Far East friendly fixtures are expected to be announced in the near future with the club also due to play in Nigeria having cancelled a match in Abuja in August.
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Can’t they just have an online Fifa match?
Great move. Indonesia was always an avid footballing country, though it’s pre-dominated by Manchester United as usual. They even have a hideous “Manchester United Bar” with piss poor food probably because they’re the MU BAR so they have some sort of lame-ass excuse to whore out money.
Really looking forward to Arsenal just being more active globally in general.
Question: How do you know how good the food is in the Manchester United Bar?
I think this year should be the year arsenal we finally in nigeria more fans in lagos
Can safely say this is a LANF-like a new fixture
Hear that? – It’s More gold pieces falling in Kroenkes pocket…
Hear that? – It’s everyone yawning.
The accounts don’t show any dividends paid out yet, so can’t hear it until it’s there.
I’m all for expanding commercial revenue, but purely from a PR point of view, couldn’t they have picked a better time to announce this? Logging on to Facebook this morning and seeing a picture of Gazidis holding up an Arsenal shirt as if they’d made a new signing (then realising the shirt said “Indonesia”) isn’t exactly opportune 2 days before the window closes. Confirmation (as if we needed it) that he hasn’t been busy working on transfers!
It’s an outrage that Gazidas is smiling with a shirt in his hands after freshly failing in negotiations for Villa, Drogba, Belhanda, Mbiwa, Debuchy, Ba, and Sturridge.
Do you really believe we were in for any of those other than Villa?
I think we might somehow have beaten Newcastle to the players they signed, what with the Geordies being shite, Ba we gave up interest in after the summer and I don’t believe we were at all interested in Sturridge and if we ever had been it would have been a couple of years ago when he still looked a bright young player and not a selfish overrated overpriced waste of space. He’s like the English Bendtner.
Sturridge? For fuck’s sakes.
fitness (and beauty) wise, Giroud’s always obvious choice.
Plus, at the beginning of the season, Senegal’s involvement in ACON was not clear.
‘…the shirt said “Indonesia”…’
We’ve signed Indonesia? What position does it play?
Sod parking the bus, we’ve got Indonesia at CB. 700-odd thousand square miles of tropical archipelago to our goal mate.
Anyone else think that these tours, the fact that we were years behind our rivals who are now very used to the demands, are having an effect on the seasons performances.
When you hear Wenger constantly explaining bad starts to games as fatigue etc you have to look back and think why are we fatigued and our rivals are not.
Not knocking the tours, just sayin we are not used to the demands yet – fuck me we need all the money we can make at the minute
Every team currently in the premier league has been outspending Arsene Wenger since 2008, we don’t need any extra money…
Oh wait, he does need to foot a wage bill equal to that of City’s last year…
Your second sentence contradicts your first. If we had a Man City-sized wage bill, wouldn’t that mean we’d be outspending a whole lot of other Premier League clubs?
And you’ve just amde that point – money does get spent on higher wages and better players than most clubs.
Since 2008 we have been paying off a debt of OVER £400mill. Due to commercial deals not being as good as other Premier League teams, we need to reach out and expand in markets. Otherwise Arsenal will be forced to balance the books by selling players and keeping stadium tickets as high as they are.
So yes, we do need the extra money.
A new signing would probably be more welcome. But as an Indonesian Gooner from the moment Bergkamp’s skills and Arsenal’s grit won us the PL title against all odds, and with it my adoration, I’m delighted with this bit of news. Will now schedule myself to watch my third ever Arsenal game – the first being God’s farewell match at the Ems and the second time last year in HK.
I really hope Arsenal will get incredible support in Jakarta. And who knows, maybe Gazidis is in Jakarta scouting the next Messi from Southeast Asia… Probably not.
A new signing would probably be more welcome. But as an Indonesian Gooner from the moment Bergkamp’s skills and Arsenal’s grit won us the PL title against all odds, and with it my adoration, I’m delighted with this bit of news. Will now schedule myself to watch my third ever Arsenal game – the first being God’s farewell match at the Ems and the second time last year in HK.
I really hope Arsenal will get incredible support in Jakarta. And who knows, maybe Gazidis is in Jakarta scouting the next Messi from Southeast Asia… Probably not.
He’ll be like a new signing. Welcome to Arsenal Jakarta
the Gelora BUNG Karno eh? I bet Gorgeous George loves it there…
Buns and burner, nice little earner..
*Rubbing my thumb and index finger togheter while biting my lower lip*
Why oh why don’t we market ourselves in the States? I think the real dosh is State side and not in some third world piss pot.
We’ll just come back knackered as usual and get fucked the first half of the season with Arsene typically wont be signing anybody in the summer.
USA is the way to go gooners!
Not a bad idea, considering the fact that the team have not been able to win any trophy for a while, they could use such tours to appease fans and also win their support. Looking at seeing the team in Nigeria. Once a Gooner! Always a Gunner!
wut
Arsenal have a HUGE fanbase in Asia and the Far East. Its growing in India and Pakistan too, ( I am Pakistani, live in USA, all my cousins over there “support” Manchester United) Hopefully they will get to play in Nigeria too this time, I hope by 2015-2016 when we have won some trophies (har har) that Arsenal will come here to the States.
imo the east is a bigger untapped market than the west, although I suppose it’s true America are starting to take notice of football (not handegg), not that I know anything about Americans.
football is the second most popular sport here (America) for 18-24 YOs, behind handegg (love that name btw)
Demographics for EPL fans are mixed (for those born here, tons have Arsenal fans who hail from African nations) , but undoubtly a large majoriy are fans of MANU/Chelsea/and Sp*rs. first too because they’re frontrunning assholes and the third because they come here
I’m from Japan and all the ‘fashion-conscious’ people over there support ManUre too. They’d never even heard of Robin Van Cuntflaps until he joined ManUre. Can’t believe it. Just like the way me missus drools over the thought of paying GBP2,000 for a handbag just because she’s been taught to believe if it’s made in France it’s gotta be good, people in Asia have flocked like sheep to support ManUre because they’ve been TOLD it’s the best team in the world.
As much as it irks me, give all the credit in the world to ManUre’s marketing team for successfully brainwashing billions of people half a world away.
This Summer Asia Tour is a joke. It distracts from a proper pre-season training period, it robs the players of a proper break, and it’s simply exhasuting to travel that far and play 3 matches in 3 cities.
The only way AFC can catch up to ManUre on the marketting front is to WIN the Premier League and to WIN the Champions League. Then have a proper marketing operation in place to ram these facts down the throats of fashion-conscious Asian fans that Olivier Giroud is the sexiest footballer alive and that:
1) Wayne Rooney is really an ogre pretending to be a human in disguise.
2) Patrice Evra is such a wimp he’ll crumble to the ground crying if you call him a name.
3) Ryan Giggs shagged his brother’s wife.
4) The manager runs an organised-crime syndicate in Scotland.
5) Robin Van Persie is a cunt and a traitor.
6) Rafael has pubic hairs on his head.
7) Wayne Rooney has arse hairs on his head.
8) Paul Scholes is so dim he gets his car nicked from his own driveway.
9) Tom Cleverley has the worst haircut in the English Premier League
10) Nani’s face looks so constipated one day he’ll let rip one giant turd on the pitch during a match.
11) David de Gea’s name is so convoluted that no matter how many attempts, you can never pronounce his name correctly (in contrast, ‘Wojciech Szczęsny’ is easy).
I love you. I hate how so many people have been brainwashed into thinking Manure is the best. And what annoys me the most is that they call them “Manchester” instead of the whole name, most of them don’t even know that Man City exists and are the current champions of England.
I don’t think the preseason tour is a bad idea, it lets the players experience something new and can be good for team morale. But we seriously need to do 3 things.
Keep our best players
Sign a marquee player
and most importantly, win some silverware, if we are to truly compete with Manure. Chelsea were total shit in 2003 but by 2008 even they gained a huge following in Asia just because they were successful.
“9) Tom Cleverley has the worst haircut in the English Premier League”
It’s pretty awful I’ll grant, but I don’t think it quite has that “I am a complete twat” thing going for it that Welbeck’s has.
Worst haircut in premier league……theres some pretty whacky ones out there. Although i did notice our little russian had sort of grown his hair. Looked like a chubby russian toddler with the cute locks. Although the winner has to be robin van cuntsy, with the skunk look!
Every team tours . Fans in other countries will never get to see the team they’ve supported and watched every week for 10-20 years if this didn’t happen.
As a fan from India , In my college days I used to wake up at 2.45 Am with buddies to watch the champions league matches half a mile away at a TV with cable. We even hacked into our college server to get better streaming speeds. This kind of stuff means a lot !
well said mate, same here