THE BOARD - Kroenke, Usmanov and Finance

[Babatunde]

Here we go the old blame Kroenke for Wengers faults He's only owned the club for a year or so while Wenger has been fucking us up for 6-7 years now. Red Member with his usual blame Kroenke smokescreen

Wenger is to blame. 90%.

However you do have to ask yourself why Kroenke would have come out a year ago, after Wenger had a shambolic season, and publicly gave his backing to a proven loser who had just completed six years without a trophy.

You would also have to ask why, as Wenger's boss, Kroenke has been willing to lay down the law to him when it comes to making extra cash from pre-season tours (Wenger was against it and got vetoed), of forcing Wenger to sell Nasri (Wenger wanted to keep him, vetoes by Kroenke)...but when it comes to investing in quality personnel and addressing the mediocrity of Wenger's mnagement, Kroenke is mysteriously silent? Isn't that strange?

Wenger is responsible for Arsenal's mediocrity, for their status as a selling club and their lack of success.
It was not Kroenke that failed to get one over on Alx McLeish in a cup final and not Kroenke who lost 8-2 at OT.
Wenger is lame and dinosaur. The game has passed him by, he became defunct the minute Chelski became the first London club t lift the CL.

However you can't overlook Kroenke's lack of pressure on Wenger. Wenger does what he wants because he has no success targets/objectives.

All those Arsenal fans who objected to Usmanov and backed our 'custodians', and then went on a march about it (well done Dead Action), and then claimed our financial model would reap dividens...well well how silly do they look nw?

The only ones getting dividends are the soon to be mega-loaded c*** who will sell on a healthy club with a mammoth cash reserve and who annually give themselves pay rises. Hilariou.

[QuartzGooner]

Darren Dein such a villain?

I do not buy it.

A friend of mine suggested the following which makes a lot of sense -

That Darren Dein is helping Arsene Wenger.

1.) Arsene knows we need to raise roughly £20M per season to pay off the stadium bond.
It also looks to me like the club are stashing surplus cash in the bank to have the balance of the bond in effect "paid off", even though they can only pay it off in installments until 2031 or risk financial penalties.

So what better way to raise cash than selling off players?

2.) Wenger is close to the Dein family.
Very handy that Darren Dein is a facilitator in player transfers through being a commercial advisor, even if he is actually registered as an agent or not in every deal he is involved in.

3.) Wenger identifies players to move on, and Dein helps him move them off. The club profits.

4.) This does not happen in every case, as sometimes it might be against the club's wishes..i.e. RvP.

5.) But it matters not, as long as the club raises it's money, and pays off the stadium bonds, then it can get to a position where it either has a semblance of a chance of fighting for honours, or can make a nice profit for the owner if/when he sells his shares.

Besides, a very viable case can be made for each player leaving.

Henry - knew his time was up as a regular in the Premiership, back injury, time to move on.

Adebayor - Good riddance!

Clichy - Was struggling for form for two seasons.

Nasri - Bit of a hot head, had a good half season, might as well cash in.

Cesc - Was always going back to Barcelona at some point.

RvP - Perhaps this was genuinely unplanned, but we got a good price.

Song - I thank you very much Mr Dein and Mr Wenger, his sale has helped us!

[StuartL]

So the board are forsaking any semblance if a title challange in order to stash the cash, so that our liabilities are covered in full - even if we cannot pay them off early due to thd penalties that would be incurred.

What other manager would stand for that, let alone be complicit and actively appear to encorage it.

[I Hate Hleb]

At £7m a year and with no pressure to win anything, which other manager wouldn't?

[Herd]

I simply don't buy into the severe penalties for early repayment bullshit.
Im no finance wizard but in todays cashed strapped times wouldn't any bank welcome early repayment even if they had to alter the terms of the agreement to do so .
After all it's not like RBS are flush right now !
Ive forgotten who but there was a guy who used to post on here that knew about such things perhaps he could enlighten us all.

[augie]

Wasnt he fcuked off the forum ?

[supergeorgegraham]

our decline is now starting to accelerate.
this happens to all of Kroenke's sports teams once he starts sucking the money out of them.

I think we are in a similar position to the Colorado Avalanche - an ice hockey team in Denver
they won 8 championships between 1996 and 2003 then up popped Kroenke. they haven't won anything since (sounds familiar )
Last season they finished 29th out of 30 teams in the NHL.
Funnily enough you havent got to look far on their fans message boards (similar set up to on here ) to find a post about Stan Kroenke and their team. This is one of their posters and the comments he makes could equally be made about Arsenal.
First up, it fills me with zero confidence. He has basically affirmed he is a basketball guy (the conversation always ended up going back to that). The most worriesome comment for mine, was the wishy-washy commentary around "maybe adding to the team in a year or two".

Like a fair few here, he over rates our prospects coming through. Duchene, O'Reilly and co. are entering their fourth year in the NHL. Does it take 6 years of NHL hockey to realise potential? A lot of players would never get there.

Every other team also has rookies and prospects they get excited about as well.

Also, this young garbage? We have (next years ages):-

Downie (26), Hejduk (37), Jones (28), Kobasew (31), Mcleod (29), Stastny (27), Hejda (35), Hunwick (28), O'Brien (29), O'Byrne (28) & J S Giguere (36).That's 11 out of a 20 man line-up CIRCA 28 odd and over. I don't buy that garbage.

What I see, is that we are going to be continuing to ride the cap floor. Our line-up isn't magnetising to fans and players alike. This is why I have little hope in free agency this year. The Kroenke's are JUST making a profit (some say it's 6 million, some say 2 million) - therefore, one additional player of note, and they are making losses, and The Kroenke family would rather lose fans than money.

I think the evidence is right in front of us all. Corzola went to MALAGA !! ahead of us last year. Vertongha to Spurs now Sahin to Liverpool plus all the others we lose out on. Something is very wrong at Arsenal and you can bet that Ox and Wilshere we be off as soon as their contracts run down. Why were the board so scared about Usmanov ? If he brings success thats a good thing and it would not be the same as City and Chelsea.

[begeegs]

I simply don't buy into the severe penalties for early repayment bullshit.
Im no finance wizard but in todays cashed strapped times wouldn't any bank welcome early repayment even if they had to alter the terms of the agreement to do so .
After all it's not like RBS are flush right now !
Ive forgotten who but there was a guy who used to post on here that knew about such things perhaps he could enlighten us all.

It is quite common for mortgages to have penalties for early repayment, so I would presume that is exactly the same with the stadium debt. Also, it isn't cheap, mine was pricey if I repaid within 5 years and then the percentages go down after that.

[supergeorgegraham]

Its 6 years since Dein was sacked and I think that was Arsenal darkest hour. When and if results start to go bad this season there will be cries for Wengers head. I believe he wont sign a new contract anyway but the problem will not be fixed by a new manager.
People turned against Dein when he left but he had to sell his shares and Usmanov seems to be interested in investing in the team.
Kronke has the power now and he is going nowhere. A lot like our great Arsenal FC.

[StuartL]

Its 6 years since Dein was sacked [/b]and I think that was Arsenal darkest hour. When and if results start to go bad this season there will be cries for Wengers head. I believe he wont sign a new contract anyway but the problem will not be fixed by a new manager.
People turned against Dein when he left but he had to sell his shares and Usmanov seems to be interested in investing in the team.
Kronke has the power now and he is going nowhere. A lot like our great Arsenal FC.

It was Kronke who Dein originally turned to in the first place, that resulted in him getting escorted from the building for going behind the board back. So Dein was quite happy that Stan the man had a plan - seems quite ludicrous now though.

[mcdowell42]

Today 40 Arsenal shares were traded on Plus Markets, 20 at £17,050 each and another 20 at £17,150 each (the record high price is currently £17,250 per share). The reason this is worth talking about is that trades of more than one or two shares at a time are unusual these days – the last time 40 or more were traded in a single day was in October 2011, the time before that in July 2011. Recently as few as three shares have been traded per month. Who bought these shares? At the moment we don’t know. We know for sure it’s not a member of the Arsenal Board (of which only Stan Kroenke currently holds any shares), as Board members must make a public declaration via the stock exchange when they buy or sell any shares in their own company


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[supergeorgegraham]

I would have thought that this thread would be quite important today. For years Arsenal fans have been saying that Chelsea and United and now City will fall in financial doom.
Actually globally they are picking up more fans due to success and we are losing fans. Yes its fickle but success breeds success and back in 1989 we were nowhere near Liverpool and by 2004 we were streets ahead.
Kronke crime will be to stop any growth from Arsenal FC and also the damage to our reputation globally. All clubs have down time but they come back.
Last night you saw Falcao score an amazing hat trick and he was the replacement for Torres. We lost Van Persie and instead of bringing in that level of talent we only now have 2 strikers.
So we know clearly that Kronke is cancer for Arsenal and my only hope is that somehow Usmanov can gain control.

[begeegs]

Well, the thing is that Wenger has always sold his best and better players in the past, so in my opinion, it isn't down to Kroenke. He has always gone into a season (with the exception of his glory years) where he was a bit short in terms of depth and he would only replace players - remember when he sold Vieira? He essentially replaced him with Cesc. He replaced Henry with Eduardo, etc. etc. So really, this has gone on for a lot longer than Kroenke. He also let Flamini leave on a Bosman while selling Gilberto and Diarra - that was also before Kroenke.

Ok - Kroenke doesn't properly invest in some teams - or so that is the perception, but could it be also that Kroenke is a hands off owner who doesn't really get involved in the day to day details of management and lets the professionals get on with their jobs?

[OneBardGooner]

Well, the thing is that Wenger has always sold his best and better players in the past, so in my opinion, it isn't down to Kroenke. He has always gone into a season (with the exception of his glory years) where he was a bit short in terms of depth and he would only replace players - remember when he sold Vieira? He essentially replaced him with Cesc. He replaced Henry with Eduardo, etc. etc. So really, this has gone on for a lot longer than Kroenke. He also let Flamini leave on a Bosman while selling Gilberto and Diarra - that was also before Kroenke.

Ok - Kroenke doesn't properly invest in some teams - or so that is the perception, but could it be also that Kroenke is a hands off owner who doesn't really get involved in the day to day details of management and lets the professionals get on with their jobs?

Yeah Professional Incompetents.

[supergeorgegraham]

Well, the thing is that Wenger has always sold his best and better players in the past, so in my opinion, it isn't down to Kroenke. He has always gone into a season (with the exception of his glory years) where he was a bit short in terms of depth and he would only replace players - remember when he sold Vieira? He essentially replaced him with Cesc. He replaced Henry with Eduardo, etc. etc. So really, this has gone on for a lot longer than Kroenke. He also let Flamini leave on a Bosman while selling Gilberto and Diarra - that was also before Kroenke.

Ok - Kroenke doesn't properly invest in some teams - or so that is the perception, but could it be also that Kroenke is a hands off owner who doesn't really get involved in the day to day details of management and lets the professionals get on with their jobs?

Do you honestly believe all this selling is down to Wenger ? It could be the wage policy but would you like to be him at the moment and face the flak year after year.
In truth we didnt sell Bergkamp ever or Henry or Vieira or Petit or Ljungburg until they were past their prime. Only Cesc was a deal that we could all understand had to happen.
If this continues and Wilshere and Ox kick arse they will leave the club too. I might be wrong but I do blame Kronke.