KROENKE IN CONTROL ALL ALONG

If YoU own a thing, it cannot be stolen. Not by you. So the idea that Stan Kroenke’s takeover of Arsenal is ‘legalised theft’ — as claimed by the Arsenal Supporters’ Trust — is overblown rhetoric.

To all intents and purposes, Kroenke owned Arsenal. He called the shots, he hired and fired, he bought and sold. once a year, those who spoke for the 3 per cent of the club not controlled by Kroenke or Alisher Usmanov got their day in the sun.

Yet it was token resistance, nothing more. At the last AGM, 300 independent shareholders voted chairman Sir Chips Keswick out, only for Kroenke to use his vote of 67 per cent to vote him back in. In 2015, Sir Chips was asked about the £3m Kroenke received in consultancy fees for advising his business and threatened to close the meeting down if the matter was raised again.

The idea that Arsenal’s smallest shareholders provided a check, a balance or even had a say is farfetched. Protests at the stadium, not at an annual executive meeting, were what brought regime change at Arsenal. Empty seats and a perpetual mood of dissent resonated more loudly than futile grandstanding from the floor. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether Kroenke holds 67 per cent or the lot.

At the ground, the fans have a 60,000 majority: and that is where their voice is heard.