Mikel Arteta downplayed talk that Arsenal were in danger of breaching Financial Fair Play rules last week, but the Gunners may not be out of the woods just yet.
Arsenal spent more than any other Premier League club last summer, spending around £150million on six new signings. It's been a rather expensive summer again this year, splashing around £120million on five signings in an attempt to raise the level of Arteta's squad.
A combination of the spending and lack of transfer fees received from sales had resulted in UEFA putting the north London club on their Financial Fair Play watchlist, according to reports. However, Arteta downplayed the claims by confirming that FFP rules were being followed.
READ MORE: UEFA put Chelsea, Man City, Barcelona and more clubs on FFP watchlist and make financial request
"We are compliant and have heard nothing so I don’t know what that is," he said. "I think the club has been very disciplined all the time and with a very clear vision of how we want to do things, the limitations we have and how we have to deal with things. In that case, nothing changes."
A week later and it appears the Spaniard's instincts were right. That's because UEFA have now released a watchlist of clubs they are monitoring and Arsenal are nowhere to be seen, for now at least. Man City, Chelsea, Leicester City and West Ham are all on the watchlist, while eight clubs including PSG and Juventus were handed fines due to their failure to comply with financial break-even requirements.
Although Arsenal can breathe easy for the time being, the risk of joining those clubs in the near future remains after Martyn Ziegler of The Times claimed that the Gunners are expected to be in a 'similar position' to those on the watchlist next year.
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