PROUD CLUB TURNS INTO A FRANCHISE
American buy-out means tradition is booted into touch
IT WAS April 2007 when Stan Kroenke paid £65million for a 9.9 per cent stake in Arsenal, only to find his investment in this north London institution was not altogether welcome.
‘Call me old-fashioned but we don’t need Kroenke’s money and we don’t want his sort,’ raged Peter Hill-Wood, the club’s chairman and third generation of his family to serve in the role.
‘We are all being seduced that the Americans will ride into town with pots of cash for new players. It simply isn’t the case. They only see an opportunity to make money.
‘They know absolutely nothing about our football and we don’t want these types involved.’
Eleven years and four months later, Kroenke has Arsenal precisely where he wants them. In private ownership, away from prying eyes. Hill-Wood, 82, is no longer in the chair, replaced five years ago by Chips Keswick.
‘Silent Stan’ and his son Josh, who has been increasingly influential this year and is expected to take a more permanent role at the club, will be free to do as they please with the money they make and offer explanations to no one.
Another proud sporting institution, one once hailed as the Bank of England Club, has been swallowed whole by an American corporation. Little wonder a shudder went through the fan base when the changes were confirmed.
‘Arsenal has always stood for financial stability and responsibility,’ said David Kershaw, a supporter, independent shareholder and the chief executive of international advertising agency M&C Saatchi. ‘They didn’t go out and borrow money. It was always run as a sensible club and not a business. That will end, these are the last vestiges of it being a club rather than a franchise.
‘It is so hypocritical. For years we heard all the rhetoric about the sustainable model, not going into debt to sign players and here they are borrowing hundreds of millions from Deutsche Bank.
‘Not for players but to take the club into private ownership. Dollars will be going out in dividends and not pounds on the pitch. It’s ironic really.’
Arsenal Supporters’ Trust bemoaned ‘a dreadful day for the club’ marking the end of an era of ‘custodianship’ with fans owning shares and holding its owners to account.
Kershaw added: ‘Although only a tiny minority, we played a significant role in trying to ensure the club honoured its values, which they go on about all the time. It felt like the last bastion of transparency. Emotionally, it felt as if we had some control over the old values at Arsenal.
‘And they hated it. I’m sure one of the biggest attractions for them will be not having to have an AGM. Stan Kroenke hated sitting there while people lambasted him. He can be as silent as he likes.’
Kroenke’s record in US sports offers little consolation. He stirred anger in Saint Louis when he moved the Rams back to Los Angeles, blaming the apathy of fans and leaving them to pay what remained of a loan taken out for a new stadium.
He is motivated by the money, not the audience — as Arsenal fans have become aware as they watched their team lose touch with the biggest spenders in English football.
With it their status as Champions League regulars has gone, they have not won the title since 2004 and they no longer play the best football in the land.
Nina Bracewell-Smith took to Twitter to say: ‘It is a truly sad day for Arsenal Football Club,’ although the reaction was not favourable. Bracewell-Smith sold her 15.9 per cent shareholding to the American in 2011 at a time when fellow director Danny Fiszman struck a deal to sell to his remaining shares to Kroenke two days before he died.
This made Kroenke the majority shareholder at the club and proved the tipping point in his power struggle with Usmanov.
Bracewell-Smith regretted her decision to sell out just as Hill Wood lived to regret his decision to sell the majority of his family’s shares to David Dein in 1983.
These two families had been in control of the club for nearly 40 years after World War Two, although it was never seen as a profitable venture. Their mistake was failing to read the future and the explosion of TV revenues around the world like Kroenke.
‘There’s nothing we can do,’ said Kershaw. ‘It’s a life sentence being a football fan. We go back to being helpless addicts once again.’
After years of protest by some sections of the Arsenal fan base to remove Arsene Wenger there is little appetite to engage in more and much will hinge on the success of a team taking shape under new manager Unai Emery.
They have invested in the transfer market and have enjoyed a settled pre-season compared to their rivals. They start the Premier League season on Sunday, against last year’s runaway champions Manchester City.
Dollars will go in dividends not pounds on the pitch