Arsenal became champions by becoming what football once hated - Businessday NG

For two decades, Arsenal Football Club tried to prove a point.

That you could compete at the top of English football without becoming what the modern game had turned into: a high-spending, ownership-backed, risk-embracing machine.

They called it sustainability. Others called it caution. Rivals called it failure disguised as philosophy. Now, after 22 years, Arsenal are Premier League champions again, and the uncomfortable question is no longer whether their model worked, but whether it quietly became the very thing it once resisted.

For two decades, Arsenal Football Club tried to prove a point.

That you could compete at the top of English football without becoming what the modern game had turned into: a high-spending, ownership-backed, risk-embracing machine.