Kevin Whitcher
Stan Kroenke has offered Alisher Usmanov £28,000 per share to buy out his interest in Arsenal. So far, the Uzbek oligarch has resisted, and it remains to be seen whether a higher offer will tempt him to cash in. Not that he needs the money. Usmanov can afford to park it and the enmity between himself and Kroenke is a given. Kroenke has never offered an olive branch of any description to Arsenal’s other substantial shareholder. Aside from Usmanov’s reported bid to buy out Kroenke earlier this year, there have been two other bids from a separate concern to displace the majority shareholder, the highest of which – valuing the club at £2 billion – did not tempt the American to sell.
The implications of Usmanov selling his stake in the club to Kroenke are straightforward enough. It means that all the small shareholder swill be brought out on a compulsory basis as Kroenke would own too large a percentage for the club to continue as it currently does, with Annual General Meetings and relatively detailed accounts. The club would go private, and with the removal of Usmanov’s blocking stake, the American could do pretty much what he likes. This might include removing significant profits from the club, or leveraging it in the way the Glazers did at Manchester United, loading significant debts onto Arsenal which could dwarf those seen in the move to the Emirates.
It is generally accepted that Kroenke is not particularly interested in doing everything he can to win trophies at Arsenal . “If you want to win championships then you would never get involved,” he said in the spring of 2016, alongside a belief that owners who just pump their own money into football clubs are likely to lose interest and leave. Even back in his native America, it seems that he is happy with his sports teams simply being in money making leagues, rather than credibly attempting to win them. Fans there have learned that his priorities are financial rather than sporting, so you end up with dis-interest and a half-full stadium when the recently moved LA Rams play home NFL matches.
So the likelihood is that Arsenal will suffer financially if Kroenke is successful in buying Usmanov out, and the American has made his bid with this in mind. Why else would he have done so? The one ray of hope is that Usmanov is simply entertaining the bids with no intention of selling. He can almost certainly afford to hang onto his shares and continue to prevent Kroenke allowing the club to decline further on the sporting front, and if he is in fact a true Arsenal fan as he claims, hopefully he will either do that or sell to anyone but Kroenke. The danger is that he wants to become involved in a more official capacity at Everton, where he has already pumped money in, albeit indirectly.
So what can Arsenal fans do about it? Certainly, a repeat of the ‘Get Out Of Our Club’ chants against the American heard loud and long at the final home match of last season – ironically against Everton - which confirmed Arsenal’s fifth placed finish, would make media headlines. And we know from the MyOutdoorTV outrage of a couple of months back that Kroenke’s organisation does not completely blank negative press. Perhaps, just perhaps, if Kroenke realises he may have a battle on his hands against supporters – who might organise such things as boycotting club products and matchday purchases, or even try and hit Kroenke through his family ties by not spending at Walmart owned subsidiaries such as Asda, he might think differently about accepting a bid for the club from someone other than Usmanov.
As was reported by both Arsenal News Review and Arseblog on Friday, there is certainly an party interested in taking over the club, or even simply buying Usmanov’s stake in return for a seat on the board. The two reported bids did happen, but Kroenke has not shown any inclination to even negotiate as yet. Only a select few know details about the bidders, and if they were to go public, then fans would understand that the club would be in better hands were they to succeed.
The first step though, is to ensure Kroenke is made aware he is not welcome. If he gets his way, Arsenal would have enough resources to remain in the top flight, and Kroenke wouldn’t be too worried if the Emirates did not sell out regularly anymore, as long as the TV revenue that the Premier League provides continues to roll in… and out into his coffers. He got away with taking £3 million a year for supposed advisory services even with Usmanov’s blocking stake. Imagine how much he might siphon off without any such restriction.
This evening, Manchester City beat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Two clubs built with money pumped in by their owners. David Dein persuaded Kroenke to buy his initial tranche of 10% of Arsenal shares back in 2007 with a view to matching Chelsea’s spending power. The club needed its own billionaire to match Abramovich. Unfortunately, Dein was so obsessed with his own machinations to oust Danny Fiszman by teaming up his shareholding with Kroenke’s and Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith’s, he did not do his homework on his short-term American ally. He’d pick a better candidate later when he sold his own shares to Usmanov, but by that time, he’d been sacked from the board, and Kroenke had his feet under the table at Arsenal with the rest of the directors. It was too late to achieve the power grab he’d planned with Kroenke. And what a mess we’re in now.
It’s up to Arsenal fans to make their voices heard, make Kroenke realise he is in for an uncomfortable ride, pray Usmanov does not sell to him, and hope that the American will be persuaded to sell to a third party, as he is certainly never going to sell to the Uzbek. They can start that tomorrow lunchtime by making their voices heard at the game against Brighton.
The new issue of The Gooner sees the fanzine celebrate its 30th anniversary and features an interview with Tony Adams. It will go on sale at the Brighton match tomorrow and can be bought online for £3.60 including postage here. The cost is higher if you are outside the UK due to the extra postage costs.
Alternatively, you can simply pay £3.60 (postage included) (or £15 for a five issue UK subscription which gets you all the remaining issues before we cease publication at the end of the current season) via online bank transfer to –
Account name: The Gooner
Sort Code: 20-76-90
Account Number: 03004112
Please follow up the payment with an email to [email protected] stating your name and address, ideally with proof of payment such as a screen grab or pdf, or at least the reference that you used for payment (e.g. 266Smith). If the payment was made from an account with a different name, definitely inform us so we can match the received payment.
If you want to buy a five issue subscription to receive the current edition, you can subscribe through the Gooner’s online store here (or here for Europe and here for the Rest of the World)
You also can bypass the online store by simply making a PayPal payment to the email address [email protected]. Pay either £3.60 or £18 for a seven issue subscription. If doing this, please make your payment a 'friends and family' / personal gift payment – this helps keep our costs down. (Overseas buyers add £1.25 per individual issue for Europe or £2.50 per issue for the rest of the world. Five issue subscription costs are £24 for Europe and £30 for the rest of the world).
Finally, you can pay by cheque made payable to ‘The Gooner’ to the address below, for either an individual issue or a subscription…
The Gooner
BCM Box 7499
London
WC1N 3XX
DIGITAL ISSUES
The Gooner is also available in digital form, through The Gooner App on iPhones and iPads, the Exactly App for Android devices and now Kindle Fire owners can also get their fix by searching the Amazon App Store for The Gooner.
You can also subscribe at www.exacteditions.com and read it through your internet browser as well as receiving a code which will enable you to access issues on all the above devices.
All digital subscriptions include access to our digital back issue library which dates back to August 2010.
