Chips is source of Arsenal AGM farce
ARSENAL’S AGM turned into a farce yesterday with bumbling chairman Sir Chips Keswick unable to control the room.
The 77-year-old buffoon infuriated around 200 shareholders at the Emirates Stadium by refusing to answer relevant questions in a preposterously disdainful manner, telling one to ‘write in if you have a problem’. Another who asked whether owner Stan Kroenke was going to speak was told by Keswick to ‘read the newspaper’.
A couple of other bewildered Arsenal fans were told their questions were just statements when everyone apart from the idiotic Keswick knew what they were asking.
Keswick, who has proved an even worse AGM chairman than his incompetent predecessor Peter Hill-Wood — which is really saying something — suffered the embarrassment of the vast majority of shareholders in the room voting against the resolution to re-appoint him and owner Stan Kroenke’s son Josh to the board.
But as the resolution enjoyed 97 per cent support from proxy votes, the two resulting ballots were a waste of time.
When Sir Chips, who owns no shares in the club unlike the Arsenal faithful to whom he had been so dismissive, brought a premature halt to the proceedings, he was slow-handclapped out of the room. Arsenal deserve a better leader than Sir Chips, who is past his sell-by date. IT IS beyond belief that yet another Carabao Cup draw turned into what the Football League themselves described as an ‘utter shambles’.
This time the quarter-final draw, due to go out live on Twitter at 4pm, was delayed for more than an hour by a ‘minor technical glitch’. When it was eventually streamed by Twitter at 5.45pm, it had to be shown pre-recorded rather than live as promised, and there were graphics errors.
The social media giants — supposedly the future of live TV football rights — are a long way from broadcasting a 90-minute match if they can’t put on an eight-team draw.
As for Football League chief Shaun Harvey, who claims the ‘credit’ for the FL’s botched attempts to take the draw to new audiences at home and abroad this season, how many more mishaps will his 72 clubs allow him to preside over?
current thinking is for the England team playing Germany at Wembley on November 10, the eve of Remembrance Day, to wear the poppy emblem on armbands. But after all the fuss in getting FIFA to finally accept the symbol honours the war dead rather than being political, surely it should be on the shirts, as Premier League teams do.