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New Arsenal chief moves to put Joorabchian conspiracy theory to bed

Arsenal chief executive, Vinai Venkatesham, has revealed the club are not signing players based on who their agent is – claiming it would be a “crazy strategy”.

With his clients David Luiz, Cedric Soares and Willian moving to the Emirates Stadium in the last year, there have been some claims that Kia Joorabchian is now exerting too much influence over Arsenal’s transfer dealings.

There were some suggestions he also became part of the Gabriel Magalhaes transfer as the Brazil youth international defender joined from Lille last month.

But Venkatesham, whose promotion from managing director to chief executive was announced by the club on Thursday, strongly denied any hint that the identity of a player’s agent was a deciding factor in the recruitment process.

“I see, read and absorb a lot of what is being said about how we work with agents,” he said.

“We don’t select players based on the identity of their agent. We select players based on the position we need to strengthen and the characteristics we are looking for in a player and if the player is out there who meets those characteristics.

“Who the agent is comes out at the end, once we have decided who the player is. We are not signing players based on the identity of the agent. That would be a crazy strategy.”

read also:Arsenal star set to become club’s highest-paid player with new deal

Arsenal’s approach to recruitment did change over the summer, however, as the former head of football Raul Sanllehi departed – along with a number of scouts who had been employed by the club for some time.

Those exits were not part of the decision to make redundancies – with 55 people losing their jobs – but instead an overhaul of the model that had previously been in place.

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