Arsenal's issue, but not an Arsenal issue.

(On Thomas Partey, allegedly)

A friend of mine, a Coventry City fan, once declared that he “would rather sleep on the streets of Coventry than a hotel in Leicester.” Another, a Spurs fan, refused an absolute steal of a flat because it was in a complex built where Upton Park once stood. Another, a Liverpool fan, lives half an hour from the Emirates and worries daily that his child (he has no children) may end up an Arsenal fan, and so is already cooking up plans to push them towards Leyton Orient or West Ham, maybe Crystal Palace. Condemning them to the c.10 hour round trip their future-father still occasionally endures to Anfield (it’s me, hi) remains on the table.

All of which is to say, football fans are tribal idiots. No real surprise, then, that when football’s worst kept secret – that Thomas Partey has been accused of rape by multiple women – broke, there was a distinct sense of giddiness among those fans with a fondness for hating Arsenal. Confirmation of what’s been clear for so long: the club is rotten to the core. Typical gooners. Classic Arsenal.

Again, that’s me, hi. I have a deep fondness for hating Arsenal. It’s inevitable if you live in London, especially north east, where I’ve always been. They’re the biggest club, after all, (sorry, Chelsea) and their fans are everywhere. They’re unbearable in pubs in the same way I imagine all fans are when you don’t support the team but they’re the fans near me and so I really have no choice but to hate them.

It’s hard not to see the Partey allegations as validation of that hate. As if every American gooner that shouts “make the play, Declan” in an Islington pub or the summer-day scarf-wearers trundling up Holloway Road past the Ariel pods-sponsored Saka mural were not just ok with Partey continuing to play, but vocal supporters of it. It isn’t.

Every fanbase is a broad church and there are certain fans, as would be the case anywhere, who see a conspiracy, orchestrated in cahoots with the crooked referees and biased pundits. A secondary offensive after not putting them first on Match of the Day every week. There will be some too who simply don’t care. But pretty much every Arsenal fan I know (some of whom are, regrettably, my very close friends) have felt incredibly uncomfortable about it and that it has somewhat tainted their enjoyment of the last couple of seasons.

None of this means the club or manager are blameless. There are numerous legal issues with mothballing a contracted player before charges are even filed, but Arsenal have found ways to edge out players and staff before. As Jonny Lieu put it in the Guardian this week: “Mesut Özil and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang were quietly moved towards the exit for perceived off-field failings. Last year a kit manager called Mark Bonnick was sacked for social media posts he wrote about Israel.”

Partey, on the other hand, was in contract negotiations until a few weeks ago.

This piece is meant to be a reminder, mainly to myself, that this does not mean that Arsenal, as a club, are inherently bad. A club is bigger than that. It’s a community, a history. Mikel Arteta, however, is a real human bloke and shouldn’t be afforded the same leeway. Until the allegations officially broke, the only public statement anybody from Arsenal made about the situation came from Arteta following Partey’s North London derby goal: “For what he’s been through, and the injuries, and the effort that he put in this week, to be available for the team, I’m so happy for him. He deserves it.” That was three months after the midfielder had been arrested and a year after Arsenal became aware of the allegations.

Likewise, the club hierarchy. Fever Bitch’s fantastic “An Open Letter to Arsenal Football Club” does a far better job of eviscerating them than I ever could. There’s a link at the end of the piece which you should absolutely read.

The giddiness when the news broke was likely also relief: “thank god it’s not my club”. There are a number of players who have been publicly and credibly accused of sexual assault or domestic violence still playing regularly, so it feels naive to assume that another club would act any differently if an alleged rapist was the solution to their midfield injury crisis.

Part of being a modern football fan is being forced to stomach or ignore heinous behaviour– whether it’s human rights abuses, dodgy political donations, attempts to set up a European Super League or starting an alleged sex offender every week. Most fans choose to do just that, to stomach or ignore it. Some, of course, go the opposite way, donning a head scarf, harassing the widow of a murdered journalist or chanting the accused’s name, sometimes even incorporating the allegations into the songs.

I know I feel smug that it’s not me doing the latter. Not my club, not our fans. At least, not this time. It’s hard not to feel that the biggest crime was Arsenal doing, what we feel, was the very Arsenaly thing of playing Partey. Little real thought, though, for the actual crime. For the obvious but seemingly ignorable fact that to allegedly rape three women, three women had to be allegedly raped.

The higher ups at Arsenal were happy to forget that in pursuit of their team’s aims. Fans don’t need to do the same.

An Open Letter to Arsenal Football Club

Photo credits:

• Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

• BeIn sports