$tan Kroenke Becomes Soul Owner

[Preacher]

 

[SuperMikel]

Josh seems to be taking a more direct role, and isn't he the heir to a Walmart inheritance form his moms side? The Walton family own 51% of Walmart's shares which are worth about 240 billion USD.

If that Spotify guy with Thierry Henry made another go at trying to buy us, I wouldn't be up for it and would prefer the current ownership.

Rival fans still think Kroenke is a **** owner we need to get rid off. Another misconception about Arsenal

 

[Arsel]

Stan, today!

https://i.gifer.com/3OZ1U.gif

View attachment StanDancing.mp4

 

[HollandGooner]

I have been very negative about the way they handle the ownership but credit where its due they are investing a lot now.

 

[Maybe]

I have been very negative about the way they handle the ownership but credit where its due they are investing a lot now.

They are just spending what the club has earned and future earnings through installments for player transfers.
Don't think they are giving their own money which would be a tricky thing to do with FFP in place, and I'm happy with all that.

The best thing for us is that they are not planning to take away our profits (if and when that happens) and they are looking to get their money through stocks instead

 

[Batman]

Josh seems to be taking a more direct role, and isn't he the heir to a Walmart inheritance form his moms side? The Walton family own 51% of Walmart's shares which are worth about 240 billion USD.

If that Spotify guy with Thierry Henry made another go at trying to buy us, I wouldn't be up for it and would prefer the current ownership.

Rival fans still think Kroenke is a **** owner we need to get rid off. Another misconception about Arsenal

His parents are both worth around $10-12 billion each. He's got siblings but yes, he's going to inherit a lot of money and assets.

 

[Kav]

Say what you want about the Kroenke family but no one can deny that they have backed tremendously the last 2 managers with resources to build the team.

I bet wenger wish he had that kind of spending power in his later years.

 

[MartiSaka]

Say what you want about the Kroenke family but no one can deny that they have backed tremendously the last 2 managers with resources to build the team.

I bet wenger wish he had that kind of spending power in his later years.

He did have money in his last couple of yrs when the wheels were falling off. His spending was not that much different to emery in that late period if I remember.

 

[Farzad Stoned]

Ok another 200 million on top of the 400 million Arteta already spent; can we just stop parading money and owners out as reason Mik fails? The funniest and most comical excuse the cultists propounded here is that Stan is too poor to compete in Pl. only second team that cost over a billion in transfers after City; but until Stan is as rich as Qatar Arteta can’t be expected to win league. Lol pathetic

 

[Riou]

Was on he same tour of the Stade De France as me on Tuesday, I went over and shook his hand and thanked him for making Arsenal great again.

He then said something to me in Spanish, what a true Arsenal icon he has become!

 

[field442]

Ok another 200 million on top of the 400 million Arteta already spent; can we just stop parading money and owners out as reason Mik fails? The funniest and most comical excuse the cultists propounded here is that Stan is too poor to compete in Pl. only second team that cost over a billion in transfers after City; but until Stan is as rich as Qatar Arteta can’t be expected to win league. Lol pathetic

The team didn't cost £1bn, it has a squad value of £1bn according to Transfermarkt (which in reality means **** all).

 

[Tir Na Nog]

My owners.

Remember A-M was on their knees for that Spotify clown

 

[Farzad Stoned]

My owners.

Remember A-M was on their knees for that Spotify clown

That was the funniest apologist line we ever heard that Stan was either too poor, too tight, or too inept to win in Pl. 600 million in transfers later they have done enough to bring a winner here with the proper manager. There really are no excuses to not win now at Arsenal. The guy won a title in every major league he competed in recently except Arsenal.

 

[Paperino]

The fact that Arsenal fans have been brainwashed by the Kroenke propaganda is very sad. We have achieved nothing at all with this owner and he doesnt care about titles at all. The Spotify guy would have been a way better owner since he care about the club and know what football is unlike Stan.

 

[Farzad Stoned]

The fact that Arsenal fans have been brainwashed by the Kroenke propaganda is very sad. We have achieved nothing at all with this owner and he doesnt care about titles at all. The Spotify guy would have been a way better owner since he care about the club and know what football is unlike Stan.

But the owner is there to spend money and hire good people. I don’t love Stan or Josh didn’t watch silly Amazon series. But other than the faith they show Arteta which is a big mistake, I can’t fault their financial commitment to winning. Unfortunately we can’t pick the owners i prefer fan ownership, but they don’t love Arsenal do you at least believe they want to win and will put up money needed?

 

[Paperino]

But the owner is there to spend money and hire good people. I don’t love Stan or Josh didn’t watch silly Amazon series. But other than the faith they show Arteta which is a big mistake, I can’t fault their financial commitment to winning. Unfortunately we can’t pick the owners i prefer fan ownership, but they don’t love Arsenal do you at least believe they want to win and will put up money needed?

The club is spending money, not Stan Kroenke. He may have provided a couple of loans to get us back in the CL (for financial reasons) but thats money he want back in the future. Even Mike Ashley lent money to Newcastle so that doesnt mean much in the grand scheme of things. The harsh truth is that Arteta would have been sacked a long time ago if Kroenke actually care about the club.

 

[Farzad Stoned]

The club is spending money, not Stan Kroenke. He may have provided a couple of loans to get us back in the CL (for financial reasons) but thats money he want back in the future. Even Mike Ashley lent money to Newcastle so that doesnt mean much in the grand scheme of things. The harsh truth is that Arteta would have been sacked a long time ago if Kroenke actually care about the club.

The loans are way lower than market rate, i loan my own business money at incredible terms instead of just contributing money for tax reasons. Kroenke also does that for both tax and to skirt FFP. No bank would give Arsenal the terms Kroenke is it is a sugardaddy deal. And if he contributed the money he would both ding his own taxes and hurt our Ffp standing. He is much richer than Ashley and at the least he has shown he spends to win at least he has an objective track record there in multiple sports.

But i agree with you on Arteta. Real football people would of never let a charismatic rookie have this level of time and accept this many bad newbie mistakes. And i will sour on them if they keep accepting his excuses. On Arteta they are ultimately responsible for his F ups.

 

[Macho]

Spoiler: Kroenke vs Usmanov – the Arsenal power struggle that led to a decade of drift

James McNicholas and Amy Lawrence
Dec 26, 2023

It is five years since Stan Kroenke’s Kroenke Sports & Entertainment bought Alisher Usmanov out of Arsenal.

In August 2018, Usmanov and his business partner, Farhad Moshiri, accepted KSE’s offer of £550million ($697m) for their 30.04 per cent stake in the club. That took the Kroenkes beyond the critical 90 per cent threshold and triggered a compulsory purchase of any remaining small shareholders, most of them Arsenal supporters.


It brought to an end a long-fought battle as two billionaires sought control of Arsenal’s future. KSE released a statement claiming that “moving to that model will bring the benefits of a single owner better able to move quickly in furtherance of the club’s strategy and ambitions”.

Five years on, that appears to have been borne out. Arsenal are now a healthier, more unified club. Moshiri resurfaced as the majority shareholder at Everton, with Usmanov’s holding company USM injecting funds into the club via a series of sponsorships. The government sanctions imposed in 2022 on the Uzbek-Russian billionaire have brought disastrous consequences for Everton.

But there was a time when some Arsenal fans saw Usmanov as the preferable owner — a declared Arsenal fan and benefactor who made declamatory statements about his intent to restore the club to greatness.

The stand-off between Kroenke and Usmanov lasted more than a decade — a period that, even with three FA Cup wins and consistent qualification for the Champions League, is often characterised in terms of inertia, underachievement or even regression.

Despite the deadlock over the ownership, it was manager Arsène Wenger who found himself most frequently in the firing line.

“I’m happy I led the club through a period where the money wasn’t there and that (the club) is now in a shape where they can spend the money,” Wenger said during an appearance for beIN Sports in October.

“As long as you had two shareholders, there was a little bit of conflict about investing money. If Stan Kroenke had invested a lot of money with Usmanov being at the club, if he wanted to buy the 30 per cent shares back, they would have been much more expensive.

“He decided to invest money once he owned 100 per cent of the shares.”

Wenger attempted to maintain the team’s challenge during the boardroom tussle (Adam Davy – PA Images via Getty Images)

It was a fairly innocuous comment from Wenger, but also arguably the most succinct explanation of this difficult period in Arsenal’s history.


So how did this curious ownership situation come about? And does Wenger’s hypothesis bear scrutiny?

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The story begins with David Dein, the former vice-chairman and principal mover and shaker in Arsenal’s marble corridors.

Arsenal were in the process of moving to the Emirates Stadium and, consequently, were operating under increasingly stringent financial conditions. With Roman Abramovich having arrived at Chelsea, Dein concluded Arsenal would soon need outside investment of their own to compete.

Unbeknown to the rest of the Arsenal board, he began meeting with potential investors. One of those was Kroenke — they met at Highbury House and toured the Emirates Stadium site. In April 2007, Kroenke bought a 9.9 per cent stake in Arsenal from Granada Ventures, a subsidiary of ITV plc.

Dein and Arsenal chairman Hill-Wood in the autumn of 2004 (Mike Egerton – PA Images via Getty Images)

A trait Usmanov and Kroenke share is that, at one stage, they were both personae non gratae at Arsenal. After Kroenke’s initial investment, chairman Peter Hill-Wood stated emphatically that Arsenal “don’t need Kroenke’s money and we don’t want his sort”.

Dein paid for his flirtation with Kroenke with his place on the Arsenal board. He was frogmarched out of his office by Hill-Wood, director Chips Keswick and a representative from Slaughter & May, Arsenal’s lawyers. The board felt Dein was trying to undermine them behind their back; Dein argued he was simply acting in the best interests of the club.

Dein had owned a lump of shares since joining the board in 1983. Although it pained him to part with them, he did not want a lot of his wealth tied up in the club when he was unable to have any input. By his own admission, he was not a good backseat driver.

There were a few leads regarding potential investors, including Bernie Ecclestone of Formula One and Khaldoon Al Mubarak, who went on to become chairman of Manchester City. Word then came about a businessman and Arsenal supporter from Uzbekistan.


That summer, Usmanov invited Dein to meet him on his mega yacht, Dilbar, in Sardinia. “The first thing he did was reel off the 1971 double-winning team,” Dein recalled. It certainly made an impression, which contrasted with Kroenke being an absentee shareholder who invested without any historic connections to Arsenal.

In a bizarre twist, it so happened that Kroenke was also on a mega yacht in the vicinity. So Dein, with his old friend and adviser Sir Ronald Cohen, began boat hopping in Sardinia to engage with the two billionaires who had the most direct interest in purchasing his Arsenal shareholding.

Little did any of them realise at the time how profoundly those meetings, and the eventual outcome, would impact Arsenal for the best part of a decade, leaving the club in a strange and destructive paralysis. With two opposing hands on the reins, the brakes were always on. Arsenal could not properly move forward.

“One minute, Ronnie and I were on Kroenke’s boat; the next minute, we were on Usmanov’s,” Dein recalled in his memoir, Calling The Shots. “Most disappointingly, Kroenke lowballed me, thinking he was the only game in town. I had a figure in mind of what the shares were worth, but he came nowhere near. ‘This is my price’, he said, ‘and if you think you can do better, then you must do what is good for you’.

“Alisher’s approach was almost the opposite. ‘What is it going to take?’. he asked. ‘I want to buy the whole club’.

“Here I was, juggling with two billionaires with two totally different personalities, who both wanted to own the club. Kroenke was a very sophisticated player looking for value. He already had many other interests with sporting franchises in the U.S. Alisher, on the other hand, was a true Arsenal fan and just wanted to own the club immediately, at any financial price.”

Usmanov at the opening ceremony of the Moscow Sabre Grand Prix tournament in 2009 (Dmitry Korotayev/Epsilon/Getty Images)

It seems ludicrous now, but there was briefly some newspaper speculation that Usmanov and Kroenke might team up to buy out the existing board. Such a collaboration was never seriously entertained.


Dein was hoping that whoever he sold to would help him to be reinstated on the board. That was one of the conditions of sale — if they get to control it, he gets to run it. Kroenke was hesitant, by now aware that close ties to Dein would not ingratiate him to the rest of Arsenal’s major shareholders. Usmanov, however, had no such concerns and asked Dein to set up an investment vehicle to build up his shareholding.

And so, Red & White Holdings was born.

They started with Dein’s 15 per cent of shares, sold to Usmanov and his partner Farhad Moshiri. Moshiri was a British-Iranian commodity trader whom Usmanov had bonded with over reading the Financial Times. Moshiri would translate to a fascinated Usmanov, providing him with a crash course in Western business practices.

Moshiri was a Manchester United fan and he and Usmanov used to joke they’d buy whichever of United or Arsenal became available first. Dein was appointed as chairman of Red & White, with the intention that he would take up that role at Arsenal should Usmanov complete a takeover.

That, however, proved easier said than done. Arsenal’s shareholders were initially unwilling to consider yielding control to either Usmanov or Kroenke. Nevertheless, both men continued undeterred, buying up small shareholdings wherever they could.

To begin with, it was Usmanov who led the race. By February 2008, Red & White owned a quarter of Arsenal Football Club. Kroenke trailed behind but, crucially, had begun to build a relationship with the board. Later that year, the American was invited to join them as a non-executive director — an honour that was never bestowed on Usmanov. Significant shareholders began to sell off small stakes to Kroenke, who gradually assimilated with the old guard.

The balance of power truly swung in April 2011 when Kroenke acquired the stakes of both Danny Fiszman and Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith, taking him to approximately 63 per cent. To close those deals, Kroenke worked closely with lawyer Tim Lewis, whom he has since appointed as the club’s vice-chair.


“Mr Kroenke, although relatively new to Arsenal, has shown himself to be a man who values and respects the history and traditions of this very special club that we cherish,” said a furiously backpedalling Hill-Wood. “We are confident that he will be a safe custodian of its future.”

That might have been the end of it. Kroenke was obliged to make an offer for the remainder of the shares and the valuation offered Usmanov a minor profit. But, to the considerable surprise of several board members, the ostracised billionaire declined to sell.

Usmanov insisted he was committed to Arsenal — for better or for worse.

---

While Arsenal’s shareholders were vehemently opposed to Usmanov’s investment in the club, in the early days, there was some dialogue with Red & White.

After all, it was, at one time, the club’s largest shareholder, just surpassing Fiszman.

Directors and executives held cordial meetings with Red & White, which usually appeared in the guise of Moshiri. While the finer details of club business were not discussed, it was kept abreast of broad strategic matters. Moshiri did not carry the stigma that Dein and Usmanov did at Arsenal and was even said to be close to several first-team players.

Moshiri represented Red & White in meetings with Arsenal directors and executives (Matthew Ashton – AMA/Getty Images)

As it became clearer that Kroenke was the board’s anointed successor, however, Usmanov became increasingly sidelined.

Despite his significant shareholding, he was not invited to an away game, not taken to the dressing room, and certainly not invited to the board. “Alisher was frozen out,” Dein says. “It was astonishing how badly they treated him.”

There was an open invitation to the directors’ box but, perhaps understandably, Usmanov did not feel welcome. The only occasions he took it up were for visits of Chelsea when Abramovich was in attendance. The two billionaires have known each other since 1986 and Usmanov described the former Chelsea owner as a “very good friend”.


Usmanov’s connections in Russia were relevant in January 2009 when Arsenal signed Andrey Arshavin from Zenit Saint Petersburg. Usmanov had spent time heading the investment arm of Gazprom, the Russian energy giant that owns Zenit. As Arsenal sought to strike a deal, Usmanov worked independently to smooth the arrival of Russia’s star player. That perhaps provides an insight into the kind of owner Usmanov might have been: one interested in being directly involved in player acquisition.

Arshavin joined Arsenal in 2009 (Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)

Most who encountered Usmanov accept that he was indeed an Arsenal fan, albeit an unconventional one. He had two interconnected suites adjacent to the Diamond Club at the Emirates Stadium and was a regular at home games.

Despite the impasse between Kroenke and Usmanov, there was no great personal enmity between them. There couldn’t be — they had no relationship. Kroenke was never heard to badmouth Usmanov in boardroom circles. Theirs was, however, a culture clash. Usmanov’s bombastic public pronouncements were certainly alien to how ‘Silent Stan’ preferred to conduct his business.

Usmanov certainly became an irritant to KSE. When Kroenke purchased 5,000 shares from Fiszman in 2008, a complaint was lodged with the takeover panel. The presumption was that this came from Red & White, although it never publicly confirmed it.

In 2009, Usmanov underwrote and proposed a rights issue to inject cash into the club. Wenger was among those who opposed it. Buoyed by a promising group of young players, he felt the club did not need the money and the board were all too happy to agree.

Over the years, there were several somewhat populist, often curiously poetic statements from Usmanov on the state of Arsenal. “Arsenal is a dream that sometimes becomes a mirage, and sometimes a pain, as with every dream,” he said in 2014. “The potential of the team is there, but there is no critical evaluation of mistakes and they need to acknowledge them.”

With Usmanov taking public potshots at the club’s direction, many at Arsenal were keen for Kroenke to step forward more. Oratory, however, is not his forte. Invariably, his infrequent public appearances did as much harm as good.

Kroenke at the Emirates in May 2018 (Ian Kington/AFP via Getty Images)

In a last-ditch attempt to wrest control of the club, Usmanov launched a billion-pound bid to buy Kroenke’s 67 per cent share of Arsenal in May 2017. With Chelsea and then Manchester City benefiting from lucrative takeovers, there was a groundswell of support for Red & White — especially as it came packaged with Dein. There was a feeling among fans that Wenger was never quite the same without his closest ally.


But KSE was not for moving.

The Kroenkes felt their message was clear and consistent: they were long-term investors and their stake was not for sale. They felt it would have been to the club’s benefit for Usmanov to sell up and move on and were somewhat exasperated by his intransigence. “Nobody can ban me from being an Arsenal fan and take away my right as the second biggest investor in the great English club, of which I’m proud,” Usmanov said. Arsenal were beset by two stubborn billionaires, each waiting for the other to blink.

“There are scenarios where it is not fundamentally unhealthy to have two major shareholders who don’t collaborate,” says a football finance expert who has asked to remain anonymous due to professional conflicts. “If a business is self-funding, then it really doesn’t matter. Things can be just fine.

“But at their core, football clubs require constant injections of cash from their owners — the myth of self-financing is just that. If the guy next to you is pumping money in and you don’t do the same, you’re going to fall behind. And that’s exactly what happened to Arsenal during the era of KSE having less than 100 per cent ownership.”

Dein addresses reporters in the summer of 2005 (Carl de Souza/AFP via Getty Images)


Overall, Arsenal suffered during this stalemate.

“It was a very difficult period for Arsenal, with a stand-off for ownership between the two biggest shareholders, and it did the club no favours,” says Dein. “Two factions were vying for control and no business can be ambitious and unified in such circumstances.”

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To characterise the period between 2007 and 2018 purely as one of limited spending and progress is an oversimplification.

To finance the building of the Emirates Stadium, the club tied themselves into several long-term sponsorship agreements, the value of which diminished as the competitive landscape shifted. When the club were liberated from those and able to seek new deals, their financial capabilities increased.

 

[Macho]

Spoiler: part 2

In 2013, Arsenal broke their transfer record to sign Mesut Özil. They added Alexis Sanchez 12 months later. That period brought a flurry of FA Cups and continued the club’s impressive record of Champions League qualification — something fans would soon learn they could not take for granted.

As much as Arsenal’s self-sustaining model made it difficult to compete with Chelsea, it was a point of pride for many working at the club. They saw it as a badge of honour.

None more so than Wenger. As he saw clubs committing what he believed to be “financial doping”, he became increasingly entrenched in his idealism. When money was made available, he would often decline to spend it. In the summer of 2015, Arsenal could follow up Özil and Sanchez with another marquee signing. In the end, the summer transfer window ended without Arsenal signing a single senior outfield player.

Wenger sought a purer way to win. That was his dream and, for a long time, the Kroenkes were prepared to indulge it.

Sanchez was a significant addition at Arsenal, but Wenger was reluctant to spend his way to success (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

When the Kroenkes took full control in 2018, there was a distinctively different approach. The football arm of the business took on a new structure, with a more committee-led approach to recruitment. As a statement of intent, Arsenal smashed their transfer record to sign Nicolas Pepe for £72million.

The pace of change was almost too much. In the space of a few months, Arsenal took on a different ownership model, a new executive structure, and a new head coach in Unai Emery. This revolution was initially clunky, not cogent.

It was only once Arsenal emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic that the new era took shape. The departure of the head of football, Raul Sanllehi, consolidated the power of sporting director Edu and the new manager, Mikel Arteta.


Lewis was added to the board and within one week, Arsenal announced they would be restructuring their remaining stadium debt of £144million by way of a substantial loan from KSE. This freed Arsenal up from their need to keep back £36million in a bondholders’ debt service reserve and dramatically improved cash flow at the club.


The refinancing had been discussed among the board many times over the years, but Kroenke had always been clear: he would only proceed once he owned the club outright. This was arguably the most significant outcome of KSE taking sole ownership, as it significantly loosened the financial restrictions under which the club had been operating.

The subsequent spending and revival of Arsenal have been underwritten by KSE. Arsenal still aspire to be a self-sustaining club but have recognised that, for that to be realistic, they need to qualify regularly for the Champions League. That has necessitated significant expenditure, which Arsenal’s financial results state “would not have been possible without the support and commitment of the club’s ownership, Kroenke Sports & Entertainment”. This has admittedly come in the form of favourable loans rather than a straight equity injection.

Arteta has overseen Arsenal’s restoration as title challengers (Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)

In that respect, Wenger’s assertion has been proved correct: having gained full ownership, KSE has financially supported the club.

But was that a sound strategy?

“The answer to that question depends on whose perspective you are taking,” says The Athletic’s financial expert. “From the perspective of the Kroenkes, who wanted 100 per cent control and Alisher Usmanov gone, it made all the sense in the world, and in fact, it achieved their goals.

“They forced Usmanov to sell to them by giving him the silent treatment for a decade — their gambit paid off. And they didn’t permanently damage the asset because Arsenal are back at the top of the table after only a few years of investment.

“If your perspective is a fan’s perspective, somebody invested in seeing the club win, then it was not sound. The club underperformed for more than a decade.”

That is the crux of it. The stand-off between Kroenke and Usmanov, that decade of drift, was understandable from a business standpoint. But in terms of custodianship, it was undeniably problematic and fostered the frustrations among fan groups that KSE is still battling to overcome. The Kroenkes may not have had outright ownership, but they did have control. More could have been done to improve Arsenal’s position had the club’s interests truly been at the forefront of their minds.


“I love Arsenal, but I failed,” says Usmanov. “What can I do? But I also believe Arsenal lost something without Usmanov.”

Attitudes towards the Kroenkes are softening now. Investment — and improving results on the pitch — will do that. Arsenal appear to have turned a corner and the era of single ownership has certainly begun. It seems that, as the Kroenkes made plain to Usmanov time and time again, KSE is here to stay.

 

[Xln]

@Macho Thanks a lot that was a good read. Stuff I never knew about.

Interesting things:
-Usmanov really could have been our Abramovich.
-Wenger himself did not want to spend. Crucial info, he kept us hostage for his own dreams.
-Dein was power hungry.
-Pre complete Kroenke takeover Arsenal board and shareholders seemed to be proper asocial cvnts