Oh god. Arsenal's property deal brought in a relatively small amount of money because they completed the apartments and put them on the market in the middle of the economic crisis.
2007 - £9m
2008 - £0
2009 - £7.8m
2010 - £15.2m
2011 - £12.6m
2012 - £2.5m
2013 - £5.1m
2014 - £900k
£53.1m (operating profit) isn't too shabby. That's just from the headline figures, think there have been other lucrative property/land deals for the areas around Highbury/Emirates (potentially up to £40m from two deals from what I've read, although half of that may be included in the above figures, I haven't looked into it deep enough).
Secondly that money was never intended to help pay for the stadium because Their loan doesn't allow early repayment.
That's bizarre logic. Any additional revenue coming in to help pay the debt repayments (even at the agreed rates) allows for less to be taken away from the football spend.
Thirdly, their stadium had only a large positive impact on the money they could spend, because their repayments are £20 million a year, but the stadium gave them an increase in £60 million. Arsenal aren't suddenly spending money because their stadium is paid back. Nothing has changed with the arsenal stadium, and they will be paying back the same amount of money for another 10 years at least.
Whilst very true with regards to cost vs revenue increases (Arsenal benefit from being able to nearly bring in with 60k what United can with 75k), it's not particularly true regarding the debt and repayments staying the same.
They had massive bank debt (£138m) even after taking out the two types of bonds in 2007. They repaid this debt thanks to their frugal spending in the transfer market, and with it the yearly debt repayments dropped to the level they are now, which they'll happily pay until about 2030.
There's so much ill informed nonsense talked about the arsenal stadium, largely because it is being used by Arsenal fans to try and mask the fact that Wenger suddenly started to look like yesterdays man with the arrival of mourinho, rafa and carlos quierroz at man utd. Also it's financial impact is turned on its head because arsenal fans don't want to accept that wenger would sooner put their huge profits in the bank, rather than spend it properly on signing new players.
It's certainly not nonsense that it had a massive effect on their ability to spend. They had more ability than they actually did in the market, that's for sure (the cash balances show this) but that is definitely more in the more recent 4 or so years. Before that debt levels were huge.