Cash-rich Arsenal offer Wenger £40m player kitty

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Managing director Keith Edelman insists Arsenal are flush with cash as they released a sparkling set of financial figures this morning, which show that total turnover has rocketed to £200.8million to leave them trailing Real Madrid by only £1.2m for the title of the world's richest club.

Young gun: Fabregas is shining so Wenger won't be spending

Arsenal say the 46 per cent increase in business, which has helped them leapfrog above Manchester United and Chelsea to become Britain's richest club, will be reflected in the money available to their manager.

"We have substantial resources of cash if Arsene wants to spend it," said Edelman. "If Arsene came to the board in January and wanted £40m for a player, we would have the money.

"We said to Arsene in the summer that we have money to spend. He said, 'Thanks very much, I have done my business in the summer. I will spend it later on'.

"From what we have seen so far this season we must be pretty pleased by that decision."

The prinicpal reason for the massive leap in turnover is the increased gate revenue at the 60,000 capacity Emirates Stadium, which earns Arsenal around £3.1m per match.

Full-year pre-tax profits for the year ending 31 May 2007 leaped to £24.9m and overall profits increased to a record £51.2m, compared to £13.7m the previous year.

Edelman says that even these figures do not reflect Arsenal's true wealth, as they do not take in to account the club's share of receipts from catering or their joint broadband

If these were to be included, says the Arsenal supermo, the club's turnover would be around the £215m mark. Although Arsenal have debts of £260m and annual payments of £20m to service this, Edelman expects the business to grow even further in the next few years.

He said: "There is a lot of growth in this business and the profitability will increase.

"We have extra revenue from the Premier League this year, Arsenal television will be launched in December or January and we could do better on the football side this season so I would like to think we will go a bit further next year.

"The type of football we are playing is beneficial as well. "The thing to keep doing is reinvesting in the team so we have a virtual circle of success here."