Arsenal approached Piers Morgan about taking up the role of Managing Director at the club in 2000 but, thankfully, the shamed newspaper editor declined the offer because it didn’t pay enough.

Piers Morgan makes a big deal of being an Arsenal supporter and often speaks as if he represents the Arsenal fanbase. He doesn’t. He’s a snivelling misogynist who represents nobody but himself as his diaries show.

I recently had a few days off and was reading ‘The Insider The Private Diaries of a Scandalous Decade’ by Morgan. I love books about the media and buy as many as I can find in charity shops. This happened to be one that pricked my attention as I thought it might the odd Arsenal story.

It didn’t disappoint.

Here’s part of an entry from the start of the new millennium.

Morgan, full name Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan (he dropped the double-barrel so he wouldn’t sound too posh to fit in with all those other working class people called Piers), was working as the editor of the Daily Mirror at the time. He was reportedly earning between £250,000 and £300,000 a year in 2000.

Ken Friar was Arsenal’s MD until 1 June 2000 when he was replaced by Keith Edleman so that the former could focus on the move to Ashburton Grove. Friar took up the role again as acting MD in 2008 when Keith Edelman resigned while the club set about appointing Ivan Gazidis.

In 2017, Friar was said to be earning around £666,000 a year. He started working for the club in 1946 when he was just 12-years-old for 12-and-a-half-pence per week. He then worked in the match-day ticket office earning £78-a-year, half what he would have earned at an office job he’d been offered in the city.

He didn’t think twice about joining Arsenal.

“It was the best thing that ever happened to me,” he said about the decision.

While Piers Morgan rejecting the chance to work at Arsenal may not be the best thing that’s happened to the club (merely one of them) it does show the difference between a real fan and whatever the hell Morgan is.