![\"Arsenal](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/GettyImages_2165650892.jpg\")
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Arsenal Academy Director Per Mertesacker with Jakai Fisher before a pre-season friendly match between Hendon and Arsenal U18 at Silver Jubilee Park. (Photo by David Price\/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Arsenal have confirmed that Per Mertesacker will be leaving the club in the summer.<\/p>\n
The former defender has been the Gunners\u2019 academy manager since 2018 but will relinquish the role at the end of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cArsenal is and will always be a very special club to me, so this was a difficult decision,\u201d Mertesacker told Arsenal\u2019s official website.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am very thankful for the trust the club put in me when transitioning from a first-team player directly into the role as Head of Academy. Now it is time for me to move on and explore something new and push myself even further.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remain focused on finishing the season strongly, continuing to nurture and develop our young talent and support a seamless transition until my very last day with the club.\u201d<\/p>\n
Richard Garlick, Arsenal\u2019s Chief Executive Officer said: \u201cWe support Per\u2019s decision to pursue something new, but we will be incredibly sad to see him leave at the end of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were fortunate to have retained Per as Academy Manager once he finished his playing career with us in 2018. He understands what Arsenal stands for and this has been a constant in his leadership \u2013 inspiring our Academy coaches, staff and young players in an Arsenal way and giving so many an opportunity to develop and shine.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re happy that Per remains in role until the end of the season whilst we focus on our succession plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe continue in our pursuit of winning major trophies with a sustained focus and investment in our Academy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arsenal Academy Director Per Mertesacker with Jakai Fisher before a pre-season friendly match between Hendon and Arsenal U18…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15133,42,15687,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-241076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-arsenal","tag-headlines","tag-mikel-arteta","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}