The former Arsenal chief executive has remained close to the Frenchman since bringing him to the Premier League 22 years ago – and he has revealed on an interview with Sky Sports that a number of clubs have already tried to get to the 68-year-old through him.
“He will have no shortage of offers,” Dein said.
“I personally had calls from various people yesterday, saying, can I speak to him? He won’t be short of offers from clubs.
“Over the last few years, he has been approached by some of the biggest clubs in the world, Real Madrid, Paris St-Germain, the national team wanted him at one stage.
“The question is will he want to do it anymore. It’s getting more and more difficult. It’s a bit of a pressure cooker.
“Oh, yes. He’s going to be 69 in October, but he keeps himself extraordinarily fit. He is the same weight as when I met him, 75 kilos.
“He keeps himself fit. He’s got a very active mind, such a knowledge of the game.”
Dein admitted Wenger gambled last summer on being able to turn around the slump that saw Arsenal finish outside the top four places for the first time in his tenure.
But even until quite recently, he was unwilling to accept that it really was time to go.
“It’s been coming,” Dein said.
“At the end of last season I was discussing with him, ‘Arsene, what do you want to do?’ Are you going to stay? Are you going to leave? He was a bit undecided.
“In the end, I said, ‘Arsene, do you know what your problem is? He said, ‘What’s that?’ I said, ‘You love the club too much.’ He’s so attached to it. So loyal, so dedicated. He felt responsible for the players coming through.
“Leaving last year was an option for him, undoubtedly. It was weighing up, ‘If you leave now, this is the situation. If you go on, you roll the dice another year or two, what’s going to happen?’
“He made his own mind up and decided to stay. I felt the last couple of weeks, it has been getting more difficult for him, particularly with the team results. I thought that, on a personal level, it was unlikely that he was going to stay after the end of the season.”
Dein warns that Arsene Wenger will not find it easy to walk away from a club he has served since October 1996.
“It’s going to be tough initially,” he added. “As I found myself, it’s a way of life. He will feel that it is unfinished business. He’s the first one at the club, the last one to leave. It will be difficult.
“It is rather like a bereavement and the various stages, the first one is denial and finally you get to acceptance and you move on. Then he has to have a good holiday and decide what he wants to do next.”
