For the athlete, the contract has been a total bust.
Since being promoted back to the Premier League for the 2022–2023 season, Nottingham Forest has drawn attention for their significant investment.
After an incredible season under Steve Cooper, the club secured their first-ever 23-year return to the top flight of England. However, they will require significant additions to prevent an early return to the Championship.
The Reds have signed 34 players since their promotion, more than any other team in the premier league. However, these acquisitions have come at a price, as the club will lose four points for breaking the Premier League’s PSR regulations by £34.5 million in the 2022–2023 campaign.
Even with the substantial investment, owner Evangelos Marinakis was notorious for his capricious spending in the Championship; the team recently spent £13.2 million for Joao Carvalho, a young player from Benfica.
However, it was the signing of another player a couple of years later that triggered the Reds’ current financial woes…
Harry Arter’s stats at Nottingham Forest
After scoring a phenomenal goal for Fulham to derail Forest’s play-off push in 2019/20, the Reds decided to pursue a deal for Irish midfielder Harry Arter.
The team and Bournemouth reached a £5 million agreement for the box-to-box player in the summer of 2020, hoping he would bring the team crucial experience as they pursued promotion.
But, Arter would be a total failure for both sides as he was unable to leave a lasting impression under Chris Hughton in the 2020–21 campaign.
In a season where Hughton’s team could only manage a 17th-place finish following the significant expenditure the summer before, he would only appear for the Reds 14 times in all.
When fans returned for 2021–2022, Arter was not in Hughton’s lineup, and Cooper’s arrival did not improve the situation for the former Bournemouth player.
After that, during the promotion-winning season, he was loaned out again to National League teams Charlton Athletic and Notts County; in those two stints, the Irishman managed just 15 games.
The 34-year-old’s unsuccessful temporary moves away from the City Ground were proof that he wasn’t ready for the Premier League-bound Reds, but to make matters worse, his promotion resulted in an automatic one-year contract extension that will keep him with the team through the end of 2023–2024.
Harry Arter’s wage at Nottingham Forest
The flop, who hasn’t played for the team since the beginning of 2021, is still reportedly worth £41k a week, according to Salary Sport, nearly five years after moving to the East Midlands.
In addition to his £5 million transfer, Arter has earned £4.3 million in salary throughout his time with the Reds, making the total cost of the agreement £9.3 million, or an incredible £664k per appearance.
| Players who earn less than Arter at Forest | |
|---|---|
| Player | Weekly wage |
| Nicolas Dominguez | £39k-p/w |
| Neco Williams | £39k-p/w |
| Ola Aina | £34k-p/w |
| Danilo | £32k-p/w |
| Murillo | £29k-p/w |
| Ryan Yates | £23k-p/w |
| Stats via Salary Sport | |
Owner Marinakis will be relieved to see the former Premier League star, who has drained him dry throughout his tenure in Nottingham, go as his contract is set to expire in the summer.
Even though the team has made a fair share of awful additions since promotion, Arter will go down as one of the worst signings in Reds history because of his enormous salary, which significantly contributed to the team’s most recent PSR violation.
