It's fair to level blame at certain players and the manager as some of them would have had the influence to exclude Partey from the dressing room. The view within the club will have been that the allegations were unfortunate and frivolous. Blame also goes to officials within the club such as Karen Smart who are said to have stonewalled the complaints. End of the day in corporations these situations are treated on the one hand as "incidents" to be managed and on the other as "problems" informing procedural reform.
It seems likely Arteta and others like him with responsible roles have privately exonerated themselves by contributing to changes in in-house training and player contract management, most of which would be geared to protecting the club from football and financial risk by shifting accountability to players. Arteta probably imagines he's "one of the good ones" because he emphasises creating a family atmosphere, for instance. I also recall reports we'd improved our induction training for players about their conduct—whatever that may mean.
I mention this because it's how I've observed large organisations work. I'm sure many of us have undertaken mandatory conduct training in organisations that view these as a way of managing risks and boosting productivity. I've also witnessed sexual misconduct claims processed with ruthless swiftness whenever it was in the organisation's interests (rank and file offenders), and buried when it wasn't (executive offenders).
The internal instruments and processes that are supposed to lead to redress in these situations have an entirely different practical orientation. Even when an example is made of some offender it's often to give cover to the organisation.
On Arseblog the argument is made that whatever the situation, Arsenal had no need to recently negotiate on extending Partey, and that the negotiations prove the club didn't act the way it did because of legal restraints. But really the club was never constrained by any factor except the football and financial impact of writing off Partey's contract which is much the same as if, for example, a key player breaks his leg: it's a severe consequence but not an unanticipated one.
The reason the recent negotiations sting is that they demonstrate Arsenal was willing to barter away its reputation for much less even than this: not for whatever financial value you could put on writing off Partey in 2022 (let's say £50m to replace him in the squad), but for nothing more than, say, the margins on Partey versus Norgaard, albeit perhaps with the reputational damage treated as a sunk cost.
It's irksome to look at it this way, but given many of us were advocating extending him until three weeks ago, the complicity had already spread like cancer. I'm rather conscious of my own decision to continue supporting Arsenal despite this situation and I don't regret it, nor would I change it.
I guess it will have to wait until the dust settles on Partey's legal proceedings, which given the run of rape trials may well result in his acquittal, but I'd like to see the club take the opportunity to publicly clarify any changes to previous procedures, and the degree of its overall commitment to preventing player and staff sexual misconduct.
If the only logic Arsenal exists by is corporate logic, then let's see the establishment of corporate virtue.
