How much Arsenal paid Aubameyang to leave revealed

Exactly four years to the day, although it was announced the following afternoon, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang departed Arsenal.

It brought an end to a 163-game career in north London where he netted 93 goals, lifted two trophies and won the Premier League Golden Boots. Aubameyang is the only player in Arsenal’s history to score a hat-trick in each of a domestic cup, league and European fixture.

He wasn’t all that bad, was he?

Of course, the final 18 months or so will dictate a lot of the emotion, even if he should forever be remembered for dragging his side to FA Cup glory in 2020, above anything else.

True details of Aubameyang’s Arsenal departure revealed as Gunners paid striker a lump £7m sum to cancel contract before Barcelona transfer

Talks between Arsenal and Barcelona rumbled on across the January transfer window, eventually looking like they would collapse on deadline day when an agreement couldn’t be reached over the salary coverage on his six-month loan deal.

Negotiations would reignite under different terms, this time on a six-month deal with an additional year option, and then finally on a free transfer where the striker would waive his remaining salary at Arsenal to join La Blaugrana.

With 18 months left on his Gunners deal at this point, the announcement from the club confirming his departure stated it was by ‘mutual agreement’.  A term frustratingly familiar to Arsenal fans, that tends only to ever mean one thing.

As per The Times, it means £7m.

In order to get him off their books in time for the transfer deadline so that he could sign for Barcelona, Arsenal paid the 32-year-old a lump sum of £7m. It is still a full £20m less than he would have earned for the remainder of his contract, although not the Willian style hand-over that was initially expected.

Such was the situation that Arsenal simply had to move him on. Relationships were broken and the team had developed, with Aubameyang’s goodbye message obviously including no mention of his former manager.

"As per David Ornstein, the writing was on the wall as soon as the decision was made: “I am told that from the moment he (Aubameyang) was stripped of the captaincy, there was no way back.”"

Please, now, let this be the last we see of ‘mutual consent’ and/or ‘termination’. It’s time for Arsenal to evolve as a football club and no longer dig themselves into these holes.

The key point to make: stop being stupid. This one may have been unforeseen, but others weren’t. It’s a trend that has to stop.