Kevin Whitcher
The Arsenal Stadium club level, Thursday 16th October 2014. A discernable lack of bowel control, an inability to string much together by way of a coherent sentence, and a big Arsenal name in attendance. But enough about the serious business of the Junior Gunners Play Day, let’s focus our attention on events on the east side of the stadium’s middle tier, namely the Arsenal Holdings Annual General Meeting.
Chairman Sir Chips Keswick, continuing as he did last year to use dismissive humour rather than answer particular questions directly, in the style of his predecessor Peter Hill-Wood, for some reason described his marriage of 49 years as ‘fractious’. It actually made for a decent analogy of many small shareholders’ relationship with the club’s board. Few want dividend payments, but there was unease about the payment of £3 million – perceived to be a dividend in all but name – for ‘strategic and advisory services’, proposed, the assembled were informed, by Sir Chips and Lord Harris, to Stan Kroenke’s Kroenke Sports Enterprises. The services were not put out to tender, but used because they were on hand. Quite how the club survived over 125 years without this expensive advice is a moot point, and what exactly it consisted of was not spelt out. They wouldn’t need to pay me a fiver for the insight that starting the season with six defenders in your 28 man first team squad suggests a hint of imbalance, but £3 million obviously can’t buy that kind of nugget from the strategic services offered by KSE.
The questions were probing, the answers fudgy and uninformative. A standby of Ivan Gazidis was to explain that everything was ‘complicated’, in spite of him talking for enough time to break it down for us. If you read back through the timeline of the Twitter account of Phil Wall you will get a fairly decent summary of proceedings. If you want an insight into the board’s strategy, Phil put together this excellent diagram. It is also refreshing to see the relatively club loyal Arseblogger lay into the club’s relationship with its fans in his thoughts on yesterday’s meeting.
However, when all is said and done, this is an exercise the board have to go through because it is a legal obligation, not because they genuinely want to inform the club’s part owners of anything they do not wish to reveal. It is interesting that the dwindling number of shareholders that remain only get this one benefit a year these days. I asked why a previous perk – an end of season Q&A event with the manager – had been dropped and whether there was any possibility of its return. “I don’t have an answer to that question, when I do I’ll get back to you,” said Sir Chips, and didn’t bother to ask Arsene Wenger, sitting less than ten feet away.
After the meeting concluded, and the queue of fans to have a photo taken with the manager had thinned out, I asked him myself. He won’t be doing it again, “because people are disrespectful towards the players,” a reaction to the comment describing Silvestre as “geriatric” back in 2009 after Arsenal had been hammered at home by Manchester United and Chelsea in the lead up to the event. I said that was a comment by one person, so why should everyone suffer, at which point the head of press Mark Gonella, Arsene’s PR minder for the day leapt in to inform me, “The world has changed. Arsene gets asked these questions every day by the press.” Well not strictly, as they are rarely as challenging in seeking explanation as the supporters. But anyway, fair play to the shareholders who have chosen not to cash in on their shares and force the board to go through the annual raising of discontent and questioning of their decisions.
Other random notes. Stan Kroenke’s wig looks a shade darker this year. Josh Kroenke was appointed because of his expertise in running three of dad’s clubs in the States, which would be hugely beneficial to Arsenal. Josh played soccer when he was younger so is an expert on the game. Stan Kroenke spoke to the attendees to introduce Arsene Wenger – a way of guaranteeing applause at the end of a speel we have heard before that basically boils down to – ‘I could have bought other clubs but wasn’t interested, but I love London and I love Arsene Wenger’.
What was interesting during Wenger’s speech, which also said very little to these ears, unlike in past times, was the expression on Ivan Gazidis’ face. It suggested someone who belied his public supportive words for the manager. A subjective interpretation, granted, but if footage is out there somewhere, judge for yourself. It isn’t on the official website yet, and after reading this, they will probably go with a close up rather than leave Gazidis in shot if they haven’t edited it already. Regarding the last transfer window, Wenger told us, “I agree we could have bought one more player, we didn’t find him. We will try in December to rectify that because we are a bit short with the injuries we have. We will rectify that in the transfer market in January.” Couldn’t find a defender… are they an endangered species or something?
“We have developed and bought English players because we want to develop a major core of our team, if possible more local.” The penny has finally dropped. The imported continental youngsters will p*** off at the first chance of better money and winners’ medals elsewhere. It took almost ten years to realise this folks. Football visionary, anyone? Young nomads won’t develop loyalty for the club and move on without any hesitation.
“We have already lost some ground against the top teams but we think we can come back. I am here to tell you that I believe we can do well and that I’m willing to fight harder than ever to come out of this season, and hopefully face you next season, being right.” So do I Arsene, but the feeling I get from these words is akin to the captain of the Titanic saying – “Don’t worry about that iceberg. I look forward to seeing you all on the next cruise.”
Some good news – Kroenke cannot put the club into Glazer-style Man Utd debt because the stadium loan deal precludes Arsenal taking on any more debt. So he’ll have to wait another 15 years or so to pull that stroke. And anyway, he can’t do that without Alisher Usmanov’s ok. And without Usmanov, these AGM’s would be a thing of the past. Kroenke would have more than 90% and would take the club private.
Ivan Gazidis slammed the “Inaccurate and superficial analysis of afc cash reserves”, which I would be interested to hear the response of the excellent Swiss Ramble to. The AST worked out there was £65 million unused from the transfer and wages kitty on September 1st, but were talked down to £40 million by the club. Enough for at least a couple of names that would enhance the defensive options, although for all the world, it does look like a little and large partnership at centre back tomorrow with Nacho Monreal drafted in for Koscielny.
Ivan put up a wages, ticket and general inflation chart from 2006-07 to 2013-14 to demonstrate two things - Ticket prices rises are lower than inflation over the period (the latter an average 3.4% per year). This quietly ignores the astronomical percentage rises in the final ten years at Highbury. That graph would tell a very different story, one which demonstrates the starting price points at the new stadium in 2006 were a rip-off. The other thing it showed us was players’ wages are spiraling out of control, directly linked to increased TV revenue. Inconveniently, it also demonstrated that fleecing the fans with ticket price increases is an exercise that has no discernable justification. The TV and commercial income rises amply cover what the club need.
There is no chance of Arsenal or its sub contractors paying the London Living Wage until they are legally obliged to by the government.
The running of the fanshare scheme was backed by the club, to the tune of £250,000 over a four year period. The club could continue to support it by simply issuing new shares which would have no discernable effect on Stan Kroenke’s control, but the money to pay for them would go to Arsenal, not Kroenke, meaning he would have to buy the shares back in the event of Usmanov ever selling up. What’s the problem? Just charge another ‘strategic advisory fee’ to the club to cover it, come the day! There will be less attendees at the 2015 AGM as fanshare owns over 100 shares, which one imagines may all go to one buyer, and more likely than not, Kroenke, unless Usmanov wants to make a point and can come to some kind of deal with the Fanshare board. He could certainly afford to fund the running of the scheme as a PR gesture, although that still does not get around the reality that it is virtually impossible to buy the shares required to maintain the scheme.
Ah well, onto football matters. Arsene told us we will see Arsenal line up in a 4-4-2 this season at some stage once Giroud returns to fitness.
And to finish, this corker from Sir Chips. “If Arsene does not have a plan we keep quiet. If Arsene has a plan we back it.” Hmmmm….
All back for more this time next year.
I am now on Twitter@KevinWhitcher01.
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