Revealed: Why Arsenal snubbed Khvicha Kvaratskhelia move in 2022 as Gunners instead spent £3.5m on flop who made just six appearances

Arsenal fans have been left wondering what might have been after it emerged the club passed on the opportunity to sign Kvaratskhelia, as they thought it would be more prudent to sign an unproven prospect from São Paulo. Making the most of the opportunity, Napoli moved decisively to snap up Kvaratskhelia from Rubin Kazan for just under £10 million ($13m). That calculated risk has since paid enormous dividends.

Kvaratskhelia hit the ground running in Serie A, spearheading Napoli’s attack and helping the club to its first league title in over three decades, pairing up with Victor Osimhen. His performances earned him the Serie A Most Valuable Player award and saw him named UEFA’s Champions League Young Player of the Season. Now, Tomasz Pasieczny, Arsenal’s former scout for Eastern Europe, has disclosed that the player had been on the Gunners' radar well before his eventual breakout in Italy. He eventually moved to PSG for a fee of £59 million ($78.5m) in January of 2025.

Pasieczny recounted his first encounter with Kvaratskhelia during a youth tournament in Poland, where the Georgian team was competing. Although his initial assignment was to monitor other players, he quickly found himself engrossed in watching Kvaratskhelia and teammate Zuriko Davitashvili.

In an interview with weszlo.com, he said : "Georgia's youth team visited Poland, there was a qualifying tournament. My job was to pay attention to other teams, but when you saw them - Khvicha and Zuriko Davitashvili - we had long discussions with other scouts about who was better. Then I watched both of them in Russia, so I followed their development for a long time."

Pasieczny attended a match between Kazan and Dynamo Moscow where Kvaratskhelia struggled after coming off the bench, visibly shaken by the crowd’s negative reaction to a couple of poor dribbles.

"He couldn't cope with it. Every next move was bad, from start to finish. He got lost, the ball bounced off him, you could see that he had lost his confidence," Pasieczny added.

"He overcame it, but if it had continued, it would have been a problem. Being affected by a few thousand people in Kazan doesn't lead to a good rating...Everyone knew he would be mega good, but they wondered how good. Whether he would be the absolute top or a bit lower. Few had any doubts that he wouldn't be anything at all. However, at that stage I had to write how it is, draw conclusions, write where the problems are."

Fast-forward to the present day, and the decision not to pursue the Georgian winger appears all the more painful. Just a couple of days before, Kvaratskhelia played a pivotal role in ending Arsenal’s Champions League run, underlining the gulf in quality between what the Gunners bought and what they let slip away. The forward now aims to propel PSG to a historic treble. Having already secured the Ligue 1 crown, the French giants remain in contention for both the Champions League and French Cup.