Former Arsenal player André Santos attended ESPN Brasil’s TV show ‘Resenha’ over the weekend, telling some stories from his time at the London side.
ESPN uploaded videos from two of these stories to their website. The first of them was about the controversial swap of shirts that Santos had with Robin van Persie back in 2012.
“Van Persie is a great figure, a great friend of mine,” Santos told ESPN Brasil. “We played together at Arsenal for over a year. It was very good, when I arrived at Arsenal, he gave me a great hand, he was a great friend of mine. Then he was transferred to United.
“During the week he had spoken to me, and as he played for the club for nine years, he would need two Arsenal shirts. But he wouldn’t have anyone to swap his shirt with. He said, ‘André, I want to swap with you, because we have a friendship, so I’m going to swap with you, because I need two Arsenal shirts.”
“I said, ‘It’s okay, no problem, we’ll swap it, I’ll give you the two, it’s fine’. The game came, the first half ended 1-0 to United, and at the beginning of the game he had said ‘don’t forget my shirts, I need them’, I said ‘okay, take one during half-time, the other at the end.
“At halftime he came towards me, we went to swap shirts, I went to take my shirt to give him, before the tunnel, I took my shirt to give him.
“And he had left Arsenal with a fight, they had burned his shirt. I took his shirt, and I gave him mine in the locker room.
“But they got more irritated, the press, the former Arsenal players, because I had picked up Van Persie’s shirt, even if we had a friendship, an outside relationship. Then after that event, the people began to curse me, began to talk, then it got sour.”
The other story told by Santos was about the time was arrested for speeding when travelling to Arsenal’s training centre, and there’s not a lot of remorse.
“From this time at Arsenal I have a good story that I was driving to the training, I was arrested.
“I was driving to the training session, and poor men are bad, when you make a lot of money, you have those cars that make everything, that roar, you want to accelerate.
“So I had a Masseratti, I was going to training at 8:30AM, the day before the Premier League started.
“8:30 in the morning, arriving near the training ground, I’m with the windows closed, pagode (a Brazilian style of music) loud in the car, overtaking, the limit was 90mph, I was at 125, and the police were behind me for seven minutes.
“When I arrive near training, there is a road to the training ground, when I turn, there were four police cars. One coming from here, one from there, one from there, the other following me.
“‘Pull over, pull over!’. They got me out of the car, they threw me, they put me in handcuffs. Walcott, Wilshere, everyone passing by, saying, ‘Gee, what the hell, are you arrested going to training? I don’t understand!
“It was even a story in the main newspapers. I was super agitated. Wenger called me, he said: ‘Relax, André, here in England the guys are like that, I’ll send you a lawyer, when you get out of prison, you come straight to the group, tomorrow you’re going to play’.”
André Santos joined Arsenal in a move from Fenerbahce in 2011, costing the Gunners €7m. He made 33 appearances for the club up to January 2013, when he was loaned to Grêmio. Six months later, he was released by Arsene Wenger.
Santos has never really succeeded at a top level since then, having played for Flamengo, FC Goa, Botafogo-SP, FC Will 1900 and Boluspor.
