City wait as van Persie heads for Arsenal exit

Robin van Persie is almost certain to be sold by Arsenal in the next few weeks after the Dutchman confirmed he will not be signing a new contract at the club — with Manchester City the overwhelming favourites to sign him.

Arsenal have announced they are confident their captain will "fulfil his commitments to the club", although they did not go as far as to say he will not be sold under any circumstances.

Van Persie’s statement, released via his official website, is seemingly an attempt to force Arsenal into selling him this summer as he has just a year left on his contract.

The captain’s current deal expires at the end of next season and his decision means that Arsenal are likely to off-load him now, with City and Juventus the principal suitors.

Last season’s double Footballer of the Year, who would be valued at more than €25 million, claimed he made his decision due to significant disagreements with manager Arsene Wenger and chief executive Ivan Gazidis over how the club were going to end their seven-year trophy drought.

Van Persie insists he has not even discussed money with Arsenal, but City could be able to offer the 28-year-old a salary of around €290,000 per week, almost double the amount Arsenal would be willing to pay.

Yet Van Persie’s decision is a body-blow to Arsenal, despite the summer signings of Olivier Giroud and Lukas Podolski. The pair were meant to play as part of a front-three alongside van Persie, but the Dutchman’s attempt to force through his exit is likely to put paid to that prospect. And any chance of van Persie being held to the final year have receded due to the stringent criticism he has made of the direction he believes the club is going in.

In the statement, he concludes: "As soon as Mr Gazidis is back from his two-week holiday in America further meetings will follow and I will update you if and when there are more developments."

Yet Arsenal — who deny that Gazidis is on holiday — responded with a brief statement of their own.

It read: "We have to respect Robin’s decision not to renew his contract.

"We are planning with ambition and confidence for next season with Arsenal’s best interests in mind."

Yet it would be a huge shock if Arsenal are not looking for another new captain, with van Persie having only been in the role since last summer, when Cesc Fabregas was sold to Barcelona.

Van Persie’s news did not come as a surprise, yet there will still be anger at the way he appears to have decided to join City’s revolution — and there will be concern, too, at what that may mean for competition in the Premier League.

Former Gunners striker Alan Smith does not believe, however, the Dutchman was swayed by riches alone.

"From what I have heard from people close to Robin he’s not motivated by money," he said. "I think at his age, he’s 28, it’s about winning medals. He’s in his peak years now. I truly believe in this case he wants to win things in the next few years when he can. That doesn’t reflect well, of course, on Arsenal.

"But Robin van Persie is looking at the next few years when he’s 28, 29, 30; he thinks they can’t win trophies. You don’t want to say it but you probably have to agree with him."

Former midfielder Ray Parlour believes van Persie had made up his mind some time ago.

"I think he knew three or four months ago that he wasn’t going to stay," he said. "That’s football these days. People move on quickly. Arsenal have to accept it and move on."

With van Persie set to fetch top dollar Parlour has urged Arsenal to immediately reinvest the money in the squad.

"When Fabregas and [Samir] Nasri left the money wasn’t invested back in. They need to spend the amount they get and maybe more as well. Maybe they can get two or more players with this money," said Parlour.

Arsenal striker Robin van Persie has announced

Arsenal striker Robin van Persie has announced that he will not be signing a new deal at the club.

The 28-year-old, who has a year left on his current contract, confirmed he had met with manager Arsene Wenger and chief executive Ivan Gazidis.

But he revealed that they disagree on the way the club should move forward.

Analysis

Phil McNulty Chief football writer, BBC Sport

"While there was loose talk after the announcement that Van Persie and Arsenal could see out their remaining 12 months of contractual obligation, the tone of the 28-year-old's message surely signals the end of his career at The Emirates."

• Read the rest of Phil's blog

"I've thought long and hard about it, but I have decided not to extend my contract," the Dutchman, at the club since 2004, wrote on his website.

It is not yet clear whether Van Persie, who scored 41 goals in 53 games for club and country and was named both the Professional Footballers' Association and Football Writers' player of the year last season, will see out the remainder of his contract or seek a move away from the Emirates.

Arsenal responded with a statement of their own, which read: "We have to respect Robin's decision not to renew his contract. Robin has one year to run on his current contract and we are confident that he will fulfil his commitments to the club.

"We are planning with ambition and confidence for next season with Arsenal's best interests in mind."

The Gunners do not want a repeat of last summer, when Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri were sold after the campaign had started.

Analysis

George Graham Former Arsenal manager

"It doesn't bode well for Arsenal for the future because they are trying to build a team and their best players are leaving. Even though he has a year on his contract, they are going to have to sell him and get the best price. Arsenal have always been very strict budget-wise and they are not the biggest of payers. But I do believe they will have pushed the boat out on the salary for Van Persie. Obviously he doesn't feel that is enough."

The Netherlands international added in his statement that there would be further meetings once Gazidis returns from a two-week holiday in the United States and that he would provide updates "if and when there are more developments".

Referring to his meeting - on 16 May - with Wenger and Gazidis, Van Persie said: "This was a meeting about the club's future strategy and their policy. Financial terms or a contract have not been discussed, since that is not my priority at all.

"I personally have had a great season but my goal has been to win trophies with the team and to bring the club back to its glory days.

"Out of my huge respect for Mr Wenger, the players and the fans I don't want to go into any details, but unfortunately in this meeting it has again become clear to me that we in many aspects disagree on the way Arsenal FC should move forward."

On Tuesday, Wenger wrote in his Eurosport column: "We want to keep Robin van Persie at all costs, because we depend on him offensively. I have always supported him, even in the hardest times, and I hope he will end his career at Arsenal."

Van Persie at Arsenal

• 2004-05: 41 games, 10 goals
• 2005-06: 38 games, 11 goals
• 2006-07: 31 games, 13 goals
• 2007-08: 23 games, 9 goals
• 2008-09: 44 games, 20 goals
• 2009-10: 20 games, 10 goals
• 2010-11: 33 games, 22 goals
• 2011-12: 48 games, 37 goals

Van Persie, who joined from Feyenoord for £2.75m eight years ago, said his statement was a necessity because of the abundance of media speculation regarding his future.

"I love the club and the fans, no matter what happens," he added. "I have grown up and became a man during my time with Arsenal FC.

"Everybody at the club and the fans have always supported me over the years and I have always given my all on and off the pitch. I am very proud of being part of this fantastic club for the last eight years."

Arsenal have seen a number of their club captains leave over recent seasons, with Patrick Vieira (to Juventus), Thierry Henry and Fabregas (both to Barcelona) all departing.

The club have not won a trophy since beating Manchester United on penalties in the 2005 FA Cup final, the summer after which Vieira was sold.

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Van Persie pulls a goal back at Euro 2012 with a magnificent strike

Aaron Ramsey and his Wales team

Aaron Ramsey and his Wales team-mates will face no repercussions over their involvement in the GB Olympic team, the Football Association of Wales has said.

Ramsey, Craig Bellamy, Joe Allen and Neil Taylor have defied the FAW's wish by agreeing to play at London 2012.

The FAW oppose Team GB, fearing it could threaten Wales' independence.

But chief executive Jonathan Ford said: "We've always made it very clear, we're not going to put any sanctions on any players."

Former Wales captain Ryan Giggs takes the Welsh contingent in the 18-man GB squad to five, selected alongside Bellamy as one of three players allowed over the age of 23.

Team GB's Group A Olympic 2012 fixtures

• 26 July: v Senegal at Old Trafford, Manchester
• 29 July: v United Arab Emirates at Wembley, London
• 1 August: v Uruguay at Millennium Stadium, Cardiff

Gareth Bale was also set to be involved but a back injury has prevented the Tottenham Hotspur winger from taking part.

The four involved face the possibility of another kind of sanction, though, as suspensions from red cards not served during the Olympics will be carried over to the next competitive Wales game.

With no players selected, Scotland and Northern Ireland will be unaffected for their World Cup qualifiers in September, while no English player in the Olympic squad featured in Roy Hodgson plans for Euro 2012.

That leaves Ramsey, Bellamy, Allen and Taylor treading a disciplinary tightrope as they aim for an Olympic medal.

Ford added: "It was always their decision. They knew where we stood.

"Ultimately they were able to make the decision themselves and let's just hope they come back to us fighting fit for our World Cup qualifiers in September."

Wales begin preparations for those World Cup qualifiers in August with a friendly against Bosnia-Hercegovina in Llanelli on 15 August, four days after the men's Olympic final at Wembley Stadium

Chris Coleman's men will welcome Belgium to Cardiff on 7 September in the opening qualifier for Brazil 2014, before facing Serbia away four days later.

Ford said he wished the Welsh players well at the Olympics but said the tournament, which includes a Great Britain team for the first time since 1960, would never come near to the prestige of international football's two major events.

"I'm pretty damn sure there's no player that would give up the Fifa World Cup winners' medal or a Uefa European Championship winners' medal for an [Olympic] gold medal," he said.

"I'm pretty damn sure that's the pinnacle of our sport and that's unfortunately something that will always stay."

terrible sports contract

When people hear the term "terrible sports contract," two assumptions are often made. First, the agreement in question must have been orchestrated by a greedy team owner, with terms deliberately designed to bilk the athlete. And second, the athlete must have been a young rube who signed the contract without consulting a lawyer first. While these scenarios have surely played out many times in the past, they're not the only ones possible.

Sometimes, a terrible contract is actually terrible for the franchise. In these cases, the team can be forced to live with unintended consequences for several years, at a cost of millions of dollars. It’s often a compound humiliation as well, as any agreement between the player and the team has almost certainly been drafted and vetted over the course of many billable hours by the team’s own very expensive attorneys.

Unfortunately for franchise owners, there is no legal team on earth that can protect them from short-sighted management decisions, or from trades that didn’t work out as expected. So as hard as it may be to believe that a major sports organization wouldn’t have all their contractual ducks in a row, it happens, sometimes at a cost that nobody anticipated.

What are some of the sports contracts that had terrible consequences for the teams that wrote them? Click ahead and find out.

Kelly Slater is the most successful professional

Kelly Slater is the most successful professional surfer in history. He has won the Association of Surfing Professionals World Championship 10 times, including five consecutive wins between 1994 and 1998. He began winning championships in his teens, and when he won his first ASP World Championship title, he was 20 years old, making him the youngest person ever to win it. However, in 1999, he ditched it all for acting and retired to join the cast of Baywatch .

Slater’s infatuation with acting was short-lived, and he left the show after one season. In 2003 he decided to come out of retirement and return to his beloved sport, and he quickly took back his place in the ranks of its greatest achievers. He won further ASP titles in 2005, 2006 and 2008, and in 2010 he won it for the tenth time. This was an unprecedented feat, made sweeter by the fact that he won it at 38 years old, making him the oldest person ever to win the title.

Team Is A Dream

The 2008 USA Men's Basketball team resumed its preparations for the Beijing Olympics yesterday in Las Vegas with all sights set on avenging their embarrassing performance in Athens, Greece.

"Earning" a bronze medal in the 2004 games may be the single lowest point in USA basketball history, taking out the cheating Russians which wasn't under their own control. Sometimes it takes hitting rock bottom for a dysfunctional program to improve itself and I believe that to be the case under the refocused leadership of head coach Mike Krzyzewski and director Jerry Colangelo.

In 2004, 10 of the original 12 invitations were rejected. That pretty much says it all. And if it didn't getting smoked by Argentinians and Lithuanians who played passionate team basketball sure was an awakening.

Many of the big names return to this year's team: Lebron James, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony, and Kobe Bryant return. However, the best additions are those of Deron Williams and Chris Paul who should provide some breathtaking plays in the international format.

It's a ridiculous team, but let's not get carried away and keep dubbing each Olympic entry a "Dream Team." 1992 will be the only team worthy of such a title.

Mario Lemieux of the greatest players in hockey history

Mario Lemieux

Mario Lemieux is considered one of the greatest players in hockey history. During 17 seasons as a player, he led the Pittsburgh Penguins to Stanley Cup victories twice, won three Hart Trophies and six Art Ross trophies. However, the regular punishment he took on the ice exacted a severe toll on his body, and he was racked with physical ailments, including back pain so severe that he had to have someone else tie his skates for him.

His various injuries paled in comparison to the diagnosis he received of non-Hodgkins lymphoma, for which he underwent radiation treatment while still an active player. He finally retired in 1997, and the following year, the team declared bankruptcy after years of mismanagement. Lemieux saved the day by buying the team, and incredibly, he came out of retirement in 2000 to become the first player-owner in the history of the game. He played for six more seasons before finally retiring for good.