Another Arsenal departure as contract negotiator Huss Fahmy becomes latest high-profile exec to leave

Huss Fahmy has become the latest high-profile executive to leave Arsenal as the club continues to drastically restructure its internal operations.

Fahmy, the director of football operations, joined Arsenal in 2017 and has been a key figure in recruitment and contract negotiations behind the scenes.

The legal expert played a significant role in the appointment of Mikel Arteta as manager and was crucial to completing a number of Arsenal’s most high-profile transfers in recent years.

Fahmy’s time at the club will officially end next month, with chief executive Vinai Venkatesham and technical director Edu looking to reshape the business after a summer of huge change off the pitch.

Arsenal made 55 redundancies and overhauled their scouting network earlier this year, and also announced the sudden departure of Raul Sanllehi, the former head of football, in August.

Fahmy’s exit is part of Venkatesham's ongoing plan to streamline the business, with Arteta, Edu and academy manager Per Mertesacker the primary leaders of the footballing arm of the club.

It is understood that discussions over Fahmy’s departure have been amicable, with Arsenal’s in-house legal team now expected to fill the void with regard to contract negotiations.

The club also plans to hire a head of football operations to help with negotiations, although any appointment would not be as senior as Fahmy and would therefore not sit on the club’s executive team.

Since joining the club from Team Sky in 2017, Fahmy has sought to modernise Arsenal’s approach to player contracts, especially with younger players.

He has championed complex incentive-based deals, with players rewarded for their performance levels as they develop, rather than offering large basic salaries to young stars.

Telegraph Sport reported last year that Fahmy was instrumental in the deal to bring French defender William Saliba to the club, having led negotiations with the player’s camp and with Saint-Etienne.

Edu and Arteta will continue to take the lead in the transfer market going forward, as was the case this summer following the exit of Sanllehi. Edu was instrumental in the deals for Gabriel Magalhaes, Thomas Partey and Willian, with Arteta providing support.

Meanwhile, Arteta has spoken about the difficulty of trying to engineer a new era at Arsenal without the support of their fans inside the stadium.

“Obviously when you are trying to build a new project there is something that you need and that is your people and your crowd,” said Arteta, whose side face Manchester United at Old Trafford on Sunday afternoon.

“If not, you are unable to generate that synergy, that cohesion, that unity within them to feel that they belong to what we are trying to do – that they feel united, they feel close to what we are trying to do.

“It is really difficult and we are now suffering when they are not in the stadium because I really want them to see closely, not on TV but really closely, what the team is trying to do, what the players are putting in so they can feel that connection with them.”