Same old Arsenal?

The Guardian among others reports that Tottenham will have the chance to compete in the UEFA cup next year because they finished so high in the fair-play league this season, despite only finishing mid-table in the real competition. Not that they won the fair-play title either: they still finished second to Arsenal who, despite their reputation, are the fairest team of all for the second year in a row (indeed, I think, for the third time in the last five seasons).
So victory for Arsenal in tomorrow's F.A. Cup final would unquestionably be a proverbial victory for football.
Notwithstanding Arsenal's sportsmanship, you must remember that financially they remain an underdog. For while Everton can rightly claim to have had a fantastic season, their gate receipts (which do count for a significant proportion of income) are on a par with Arsenal's. Newcastle -- who finished thirteenth or fourteenth -- have a higher salary bill. Middlesborough have a similar amount of transfer spending. Spurs' coffers are swelled by public listing (then emaciated through mismanagement).
Compare this with Manchester United whose sportsmanship I leave anyone who's watched them play to judge. And let us not pity them financially. Not only have they benefited from public listing and privileged deals with television companies who owned stakes in their plc stocks, but the scare stories of their independent support groups in the face of Glazer's take-over tend to omit some rather salient points:

• the club already had significant debt through having not won the league, which reduces TV revenue in England and in Europe;
• this was exacerbated by big tranfer payouts for a couple of bolshy teenagers;
• which was in turn compounded by players who get banned quite a lot but who have actually won something demanding and receiving improved contracts;
• which had meant there would be no money for transfers over the closed season unless the club sold players first (£8m Kleberson anyone?);
• and that ticket prices would have to rise as a result;
• this with the full approval of the club's largest shareholders, two foreigners with little knowledge of football but whose primary interest lay in other sport;
• who were barely on speaking terms with the manager and had probably been briefing against him in the press.

While I accept that Man U's debt will almost certainly increase under Glazer, the club's fans should look at Chelsea whose debt runs into hundreds of millions of pounds but who've just had their most successful season ever.
So I say to them: sit down, shut up.
And let's hope Arsenal produce the goods tomorrow to put a bit of the sport back into football.