Thierry Henry smiled and cried as a bronze statue of a famous goal celebration from the great striker was unveiled back in early December.
Arsene Wenger, though, was more interested in the real thing and had already seen enough in training to want Henry back at Arsenal.
Monday evening, Henry will be back on Wenger's team sheet for the first time in four and half years.
Not fit enough for 90 minutes of English football, he is unlikely to start the FA Cup tie with Leeds United, yet Wenger has no concerns of the 34 year old tarnishing memories now embodied in stadium sculpture.
"You cannot take away from people what they have done and what he has delivered will stay forever," said Wenger. "I think it can just make the statue a little bit bigger."
It is certainly a different man who arrives on a short-term loan from the New York Red Bulls to the at times destructively egotistic figure who exited to Barcelona in the summer of 2007.
Then Henry was both captain and dominant presence in the dressing room, an individual whose ability to win some games single-handedly saw him indulge in player-manager-like behaviour.
In the first season after the club's hugely expensive move from Highbury to the Emirates Stadium, the first team had taken on a youthful cast, resources further stretched by the £5 million-plus (Dh28.5m) signing-on fee Henry demanded for extending his Arsenal contract.
There were times when players felt obliged to pass the ball to the captain; and times when they were aggressively taken to task for perceived failings. If Henry's £16.1 million (Dh91.2m) sale to Barcelona followed a Wenger principle of never allowing any one individual to grow larger than his club, the manager is diplomatic when discussing the process now.
Did Arsenal's youngsters benefit from Henry's departure?
"No, I think with Thierry it is as simple as this: I wanted him to stay and he said. 'We have a young team, they will be good in three or four years, but I cannot wait. I am 30 and I have to go somewhere we have a chance to win'," Wenger said. "We had the same scenario last year, but the only difference was that the player [Cesc Fabregas] was 24."
Though Henry won everything at Camp Nou, he never became the club's predominant player. Back problems that began to slow the striker down in London remained in Spain. The directness of his attacking play never completely meshed with Barca's intricacies.
Pep Guardiola ultimately converted him into a deluxe substitute.
That is almost exactly how Henry expects to be employed at Arsenal.
He has been secured on £70,000 per week wages and a hefty MLS-mandated insurance premium until mid-February to cover for the African Nations Cup absences of Gervinho and Marouane Chamakh.
Though available only for the away leg at AC Milan, the Frenchman has also been added to Arsenal's Champions League squad.
"It looks like I'm going to be a bench player," said Henry.
"Or maybe not on the bench but more of an out-of-the-side type of player. When the club you love asks you just to be a squad player, so be it. I just love the club so much.
"I am not 25 any more, I am not going to take the ball from the middle of the park and dribble past five or six players. I remember Dennis [Bergkamp] and he used to be the main front guy.
"Suddenly he was playing behind the striker and if you have the awareness to see things before players, you can get away with not having your legs. That's what I am going to try to bring to this team if I have to play."
Though Wenger similarly talks of an Henry who is "more open to other people", the decision to bring him back was a pragmatic one, made even before the idea had been floated to the player.
Henry asked for close-season training facilities and Wenger, having observed the striker's "pride and desire to win" an MLS play-off game against LA Galaxy, marked the mid-November start date as a trial.
"It took me two or three weeks [to decide to sign him]," said Wenger. "You have to get used to the idea, to see the kind of impact with the team, how he is physically, how motivated he is to come in every day and work hard. The physical level in the Premier League is the highest in the world. So you have to see how much he can cope with that."
Ignore the romantic overtones, suggests Henry biographer Philippe Auclair - this is not the rekindling of a manager-player love affair.
"People always overstate the relationship between Henry and Wenger," said Auclair.
"They are close to each other, but they're not friends. It is a very good working relationship based on mutual respect and how much they've done for each other.
"That is enough, because they are both so driven."
sports@thenational.ae
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
