Arsenal fans will like this one. How did you think Arsenal found Wenger? Through a cigarette lighter. I promise- I wish I was kidding. Arsenal were not allowed to let women into their boardroom in 1989, and that sexist rule accidentally led to the greatest appointment in the club's entire history, because the women were kept in a separate cocktail lounge at half time. And that was where Barbara Dein spotted a tall, suave continental man in a beige trenchcoat and rimless glasses standing quietly in the corner. She and her friend Penny Grade had gone over simply to ask him for a cigarette lighter, but Barbara was so struck by this elegant, intellectual Frenchman that she immediately sent her husband David a message telling him there was someone in the lounge he needed to meet, the manager of Monaco. David Dein came out of the boardroom, met Arsene Wenger, and invited him to dinner that same evening where they played charades, and Wenger's intellect impressed Dein so deeply that he wrote his name in his diary that night with a quiet conviction that this was someone Arsenal needed. From that evening, Dein stayed in regular contact with Wenger, sending him VHS tapes of Arsenal matches every week for years, which is how Wenger came to know so much about the club long before he ever managed them. That was 1989, and it took seven more years of Dein fighting the Arsenal board, who rejected his suggestion to appoint Wenger as early as 1995, before they finally agreed after Bruce Rioch's dismissal in 1996, and the British press responded to the appointment by asking "Arsene Who?" which remains one of the most embarrassing headlines in football journalism history. Wenger spent the next 22 years making that question look very foolish, winning 3 Premier League titles including the completely unbeaten Invincibles season of 2003/04 where Arsenal went the entire league campaign without losing once, a record that still stands today, along with seven FA Cups which made him the most successful manager in the history of that competition, and two league and cup doubles, and a Champions League final appearance in 2006, all across 1,235 games in charge. What most people outside Arsenal do not fully appreciate though is what Wenger did for the club financially, because his ability to find players like Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira, Robert Pires, Kolo Toure and Cesc Fabregas for fractions of their actual market value completely transformed how Arsenal operated. A survey in 2007 found that Wenger was the only Premier League manager to have made a profit on transfers, averaging £4.4 million profit per season between 2004 and 2009, and that financial discipline directly contributed to the club's ability to finance the construction of the Emirates Stadium, a £390 million project that Arsenal funded largely through their own resources without the billionaire backing that most clubs depend on today. He left in 2018 after 22 years and joined FIFA as Chief of Global Football Development in 2019, responsible for developing the game across 211 countries, and David Dein, who was dismissed by Arsenal on 18 April 2007 following a boardroom dispute over outside investment, went on to become an Ambassador for both the Premier League and the FA. He also founded The Twinning Project, a charity connecting football clubs with local prisons to help rehabilitate offenders, which he described as the work that animates him most. Dein has since said that Wenger's treatment on leaving Arsenal made him "so angry" and that the club should have made him chairman, which tells you everything about the bond that began with a cigarette lighter in a cocktail lounge in 1989. One small moment started all of it. Hope you learned something today. My name is Ajoje. I am a FIFA Licensed Agent and International Sports Lawyer. I write on the Law and Business of Football, a lot. Repost and Follow if you want to read more posts like this.