THE BOARD - Kroenke, Usmanov and Finance

[1989]

Best news in about 5 years.

[nut flush gooner]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/footba ... weeks.html

I would normally take this sort of article with a pinch of sort. But the telegraph isnt into gutter journalism. Note the comments about recreating the north bank atmosphere and reduce ticket prices.

[Goonimp]

We will not bid if Arsenal go into decline. Bit bloody late for that!

I can see the point though. Here's some money, take it while you can, because when the inevitable happens and you don't finish top four, we will be long gone.

I, like some others, always worry with foreign takeovers. But the problem is there is no one closer to home with the financial clout that is required. It is either take a risk (and it is not as if everything is rosy now) and see what happens, or get used to years of decline and Thursday night football.

[oboe123]

I hope there is some truth in this but we have to be careful.A lot of these takeovers end in tears and promising to spend big and reduce ticket prices is an easy way of galvanising the fans to get behind the bid.It is not very often that ANY club reduces admission prices.

[Goonimp]

I hope there is some truth in this but we have to be careful.A lot of these takeovers end in tears and promising to spend big and reduce ticket prices is an easy way of galvanising the fans to get behind the bid.It is not very often that ANY club reduces admission prices.

Yes the PR machine has already started. What else will they come up with? A return to the old style club badge, rather than that massive cartoon Christmas card-sized abomination stuck to the front of your replica shirt?

As you say, you need to be careful. Pity there's not a Gooner out there with a few billion.

[nut flush gooner]

I hope there is some truth in this but we have to be careful.A lot of these takeovers end in tears and promising to spend big and reduce ticket prices is an easy way of galvanising the fans to get behind the bid.It is not very often that ANY club reduces admission prices.

Yes the PR machine has already started. What else will they come up with? A return to the old style club badge, rather than that massive cartoon Christmas card-sized abomination stuck to the front of your replica shirt?

As you say, you need to be careful. Pity there's not a Gooner out there with a few billion.

Lesser of two evils imo, at least you know the arabs have a track record of spending money at english/french clubs. I cannot believe that Kroenke would not seriously consider this. It would take him a number of years to make that sort of money out of the club The consortium are also open to usmanov being involved in the club, and that could pave the way back for david dein.

Sadly the days of being a well run club to win trophies are over, its all about who has the biggest financial clout nowadays. No money equals no trophies.

[topgoon]

I am sure there are more financially savvy gooners than me that can see how much of a bull***t story this is. We are expected to really believe some consortium wants to give Stanley 400million profit for doing nothing.

The natural cynics on here should marvel at emergence of this story late last night,before derby where the current management and board are about to be overtaken on and off the pitch by their penny pinching,ridiculous wage structure and lack of or arrogant disregard of any form of tactical awareness.

This story stinks worse than french cheese and has more f**king holes in it than swiss cheese but notice how it ticks many boxes of most of the sane ones on here.

1.buy club,dump board,provide lots of falcao,goetze buying money......check
2.Get rid of manager but send him upstairs thus keeping Arsene haters,AKBs and the undecided happy.....check.
3.Promise lots of cheap tickets.......check.
4.Promise to improve the atmosphere.......check.

WALOB.........though I am dying to know how this unnamed megarich consortium will do no.4!!

Oh and

5. Promising to bring back gooners club running messiah David Dein......check

[georgeknows89]

CLOCKENDER1- If they bid for SK shares they have to offer the same amount to all shareholders.

Red & White remain committed to ownership of their shares but do not see the value of £20k per share as accurate reflection of our worth.

I am reliably informed that the 'bidders' have appointed a PR company that were previously involved in the acquisition of other clubs so certainly do exist but beyond that with all the money at stake everything else will be cards kept very close to the chest.

Whatever happens this coming out cannot do any harm to the pressure on Kroenke.

The interesting piece will be the reaction and quality of the PR machine at Arsenal with the likes of Mark Gonnella having to wheel out all forms of shit to try and keep all the existing cronies happy

interesting times ahead but for me all that matters now today is 3 POINTS AGAINST THE SCUM

[supergeorgegraham]

As fans of a declining club we have nothing to lose. It wont mean we will win the Prem League as proved by the brilliantly managed non Billionaire club Man Utd but it will mean you will see better players at Arsenal and hopefully at a cheaper price.
Has it been value for money with City and Chelsea ? Hell no they have won very little compared to what they spent but their profile has risen world wide and that brings in money.
In todays game there are very few Henrys and Drogbas but with the correct manager you can produce a strong quality side unlike the shite we are watching at the moment.

[Arsenal Till I Die]

Jose Mourinho's red and white army!

[REB]

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A £1.5 Billion takeover of Arsenal in the offing according to the Telegraph today.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/foo...few-weeks.html

The group do not want their identities made public yet but a bid source told Telegraph Sport the intention is to buy out Arsenal’s American owner, Stan Kroenke, whose perceived weak stewardship of the club has also been called into question by frustrated supporter groups.

The cash offer, which is more than twice the amount at which Arsenal were valued two years ago, will be for 100 per cent of the club, and if successful would wipe out debts that stand at around £250 million according to the last full year’s financial results.

According to a bid source, there would be substantial transfer funds made available to transform the club into a major force in European and world football. There would also be a pledge to reduce ticket prices at the Emirates Stadium — currently among the highest in the world — as well as an attempt to recreate “some of the feel of the old North Bank” at Highbury.

The bid team has noted the damage caused by Kroenke, who owns two-thirds of the club, refusing to engage with Uzbek billionaire Alisher Usmanov, who owns 29.96 per cent.
The bidders would like to unite the ownership, putting all the shares together in one fund. The offer will be for the full 62,217 shares which have been issued, but effectively it will be to buy out Kroenke, in the first instance, paying around £830 million for his 66.83 per cent shareholding (41,581). The offer equates to around £20,000 per share.

The deal would provide the American with an approximate profit of £400 million given the majority owner is believed to have paid around £430 million to build his stake in the club since he first became involved in 2007. When Kroenke made his mandatory cash offer for Arsenal in April 2011, buying up the stakes owned by Danny Fiszman and Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith, it valued the club at £731 million.

A meeting has already been requested with the American to discuss the proposed offer. The seriousness of the bid is reinforced by the recent successful takeovers of Manchester City and Paris St-Germain by Middle East backers.
It is unlikely Usmanov will want to sell his shareholding, given his “dream” of taking control of Arsenal himself, but the Middle East consortium believes it will be able to work with the billionaire, who does not currently have a seat on the board and who has been frustrated in his attempts to get more involved.

Any takeover would inevitably raise questions over the future of manager Arsène Wenger, although the Frenchman is understood to be highly-regarded by the consortium They do not want to lose his football knowledge and want him to remain at the club.

But they are well aware that the last trophy won was the 2005 FA Cup and that Arsenal have become less of a rival to the Premier League's top clubs. They believe that the club have settled for relative mediocrity.

Arsenal travel on Sunday to north London rivals Tottenham with the club in a desperate fight to finish in the top four of the Premier League and qualify for next season’s Champions League. Arsenal currently lie in fifth place, four points behind their neighbours.

Despite protestations to the contrary, failure to qualify for the Champions League would undoubtedly have serious ramifications for Arsenal, who have been in Europe’s premier club competition for the past 16 years under Wenger.

A bid source told Telegraph Sport: “Arsenal is at a pivotal position at the moment. The fear is that the club is facing a cycle of decline like Liverpool. From our point of view it is the perfect moment to make this bid because at this moment in time you can still genuinely justify this extraordinary valuation on the club.

“We will not bid for Arsenal if they go into decline. Kroenke and Usmanov will not get this kind of valuation if Arsenal do not succeed and will not get this kind of valuation ever again.
“We think that bidding now is the key because it is going to give every shareholder maximum value. We are giving them peak valuation.
“The amount of capital required to pump into Arsenal to make it competitive within England, Europe and the world means that the valuation cannot go any higher.”
It makes the prospect of a gargantuan bid to buy the club all the more tantalising for frustrated Arsenal supporters.

“No big club can go eight years without winning anything,” the source added. “No manager of a big club, not even Sir Alex Ferguson, would have survived eight years without winning.” It is not an unreasonable statement.

Whether Wenger would voluntarily stay and work under a new regime is another question. Should a bid prove successful, Wenger would be in an awkward position, having previously criticised clubs with wealthy owners, accusing them of “financial doping”, although he has strong links with Paris St-Germain who, of course, also have Qatari owners.

Wenger’s current contract runs until June 2014 and it is understood that as things stand he has no intention of quitting even if Arsenal finish outside the top four, although he has faced growing calls to go.
The proposed new owners claim they are serious in their desire to turn Arsenal into a force again and also to do it in the right way. They say they do not want to acquire the club to make money but to invest.
The bid group believe that the ownership of Kroenke and his son and heir, Josh, has been at the heart of the club’s lack of competitiveness. They have also identified a lack of experience in football as a significant barrier to success.

“The biggest problem with Arsenal is that it has no owner, no face and there is no one to report to,” the bid source claimed. “The management of the club at every level is not put under scrutiny and does not have to report to anyone.”
The inference is that neither Kroenke nor his son has a feel for Arsenal – a claim which has been lent weight by the former’s low profile at the Emirates Stadium – and that the current board lacks strength and leadership.

Chief executive Ivan Gazidis has been criticised for being too deferential towards Wenger, who enjoys a huge amount of control at Arsenal.

Supporters have complained that Kroenke is not a visible presence and has not met directly with them since the takeover, although he has attended recent home games against Bayern Munich and Aston Villa. His reign at the club has come under criticism from fans at successive annual meetings.

Arsenal currently have a clear, self-sustaining structure, rejecting the benefactor model, with Wenger, the board and majority owner believing their approach will eventually succeed, especially with the incoming Uefa Financial Fair Play rules.

But there are genuine fears among fans that Arsenal are simply slipping away and becoming less competitive.
If successful, the bid would almost certainly take Arsenal to another level. The prospective owners claim their intention is to turn Arsenal into a major force in European football; one that will compete with Manchester United and Manchester City for the Premier League title and with Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and PSG in the Champions League.

Given the nature and structure of the funding, the bidders say they are confident they will still be able to comply with FFP.

It is understood that they wish to maintain a degree of stability at the club, despite the upheaval of a takeover, although there would be a new board and, in all probability, a new chief executive as it is understood that Gazidis would be unlikely to be retained.

The bid team regard Arsenal as one of the great clubs of European football but also one that is no longer punching its weight and is in danger of falling behind.

Arsenal’s failure to hang on to their top talent has been a source of major unease at the club. Losing Holland international striker Robin van Persie — who left for Manchester United criticising a lack of ambition – Spain international Cesc Fabregas and France international Samir Nasri all hit hard.

The prospective owners claim there would be a firm commitment to a model of developing and keeping young players but also, and as a priority, to strengthening the squad so that those players, such as Jack Wilshere, have no reason to leave in the future.

Wenger believes he has a core of a squad that can challenge but this is not a universally-held opinion with doubts over the strength of the spine of the team.
Even his most fervent supporters struggle to make a case that Wenger is on the verge of creating another great team or that the squad has depth and quality to compete despite a high wage bill.

The Middle East consortium claim to sympathise with Arsenal supporters and their contention that many of them have been priced out of following their club.

Supporters groups have already warned that generations of fans could be lost.

Ticket prices, among the highest in the world and an increasingly contentious issue, will be reduced, the bid source said, and there will be an attempt to recreate “some of the feel of the old North Bank” at Highbury within the Emirates Stadium.

The bid source added there was a real desire to “bring back some of the true supporters” who have been priced out or become disillusioned.

The disillusionment is undoubtedly there. Cup defeats to Bradford City and Blackburn Rovers heightened that sense as did the humiliating Champions League 3-1 defeat to Bayern Munich at the Emirates a fortnight ago, when the German side played with a verve and tempo Arsenal no longer recognise.
Finishing outside the top four would compound it even more especially if the proposed takeover is rejected. That would further increase the pressure on Kroenke in particular.
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tbh I cant see it happening as usmanov wont want to sell and doesn't need too, stan the gobshite prick yes as he is only in it to make profit.

[Arsenal Till I Die]

To compete at the best level we NEED this. We're too far down the road to even think we are close to being great again.

Problem is, the "Arsenal way" is long since dead so we won't be losing it. It's already gone.

Al Arsenal Till I Die

[mcdowell42]

Closed the evening by stating he cannot predict the future of Arsenal. ‘Whatever happens, happens.’ Yet he closed by smirking and mentioning don’t be surprised by ‘a major event of change in the not too distant future.’

David Dein



This taken from the gooner on feb 22nd



http://onlinegooner.com/article.php?sec ... ve&id=2883

[GranadaJoe]

I don't like the idea of foreign ownership, full stop. But, being practical, I'd rather glory hunting Arabs to bank balance chasing, invisible Americans.

[Rosie_titters]

won't happen,

we need to copy how Germany do it. Bayern Munich, Schalke & Dortmund are the way forward - producing world class home grown players, with few overseas stars add to the mix