Arsenal confirm pre tax loss

Premier League football club Arsenal has confirmed it made a small pre-tax loss in the six months to the end of November last year.

The club announced it lost £2.2 million over the course of the six-month period, which is a big difference to its figures for the same time the year before, when it made a profit of £17.8 million.

Arsenal, which is privately-owned, is regularly hailed as one of the best run clubs in the Premier League and despite revealing a small pre-tax loss in its latest financial results, the club claims to be in good shape.

The club's chairman, Sir Chips Keswick, said: "We believe we are in a strong position to take the club forward, both in the short term and beyond, and to deliver future on-field success."

Arsenal recently announced a massive new kit deal with Puma, which is set to run for five years and gets underway at the beginning of the next financial year.

Mesut Ozil transfer deal

The club's financial results for the six months to the end of November were affected by the club record transfer fee for Germany international midfielder Mesut Ozil, who joined the London side from Real Madrid in August.

Arsenal paid around £42.5 million for the player, which was well in excess of the previous record transfer the club had forked out. Ozil joined fellow Germans such as Per Mertesacker and Lukas Podolski at the Emirates Stadium when he signed for the club in the summer.

The addition of Ozil has been a boost to Arsenal on the field this season and Arsene Wenger's team have been flying high in the Premier League, despite a heavy 5-1 defeat away at Anfield last weekend.

Arsenal got their revenge on Liverpool yesterday (February 16th) with a 2-1 win in the FA Cup against Brendan Rodgers' side and they next play in midweek in a Champions League game against defending champions Bayern Munich.

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