Not even Abramovich can afford Arshavin

[Chase]

Andrei Arshavin has attracted the likes of Newcastle, Man City, Arsenal and hopefully, for him, Barcelona. But if he is honest, why should he want to leave Zenit? The team have just won the Russian Premier League and the UEFA Cup, and he is a superstar in his home country.

He has just helped his international team beat the favourites to reach the Euro2008 semifinal. Russia are moving up the World league table for the UEFA ranking and they are now in sixth and closing in on Holland in fifth.

Which means that big European teams cannot just rush in and take their pick of East European players.

Arshavin already earns £50,000 a week, which is still a good wage anywhere in the world and as Zenit are owned by Gazprom, the fourth richest company IN THE WORLD! And they forecast that by 2010 they will be the richest, with a value of one TRILLION dollars.

They even helped Abramovich get a little richer in 2005 by paying him 13 billion dollars for his share in the Sibneft oil company, so if Roman thought he could encourage him to come to Chelsea, there is not a wage in the world that the owners could not match.

Arsenal are rumoured to be making approaches, but for a team like Zenit, they are poor. And with Wenger's wage policy, what could they offer him to play for the third best team in England?

Everyone expects him to snap up an offer from a "big club", but seriously, why should he?

[Beefy]

I think a lot depends on how Zenit St Petersburgh do in the Champions League this season. If they do well, then i can see players going to play in Russia instead of leaving to play in other parts of Europe. russia certainly has more than it's fair share of Billionaires now, if it wasn't for the wather i'm sure the stars of Europe would already be playing there.

[Crobinho]

You are right Chase regarding the fact that he is a topstar in Russia and his wage is as big as he wants to
but i've heard that there is the possibillity of him leaving Zenit to join Barcelona, would be a great deal for all of the sides involved
there are a lot players playing in Russia who dont want to leave their country, and even foreigners say that their status there is so good that they dont want to leave
our Croatian player Dario Srna for example, he plays for Shakhtar Donetsk and many clubs are interrested in him but he refused them all because he is Captain of the squad, the wage is right and the fans love him, so why change