Usmanov should be on the board, if I owned a third of a company I'd expect to have a say in how it is run. Usmanov's alleged crimes are just that - alleged, found guilty then pardoned. I can't stand people who make out they are "whiter than white". Even if he hadn't been pardoned, he did the crime and the time in prison that followed, everyone deserves a second chance. I don't like Kroenke, I hate his moustache and his silence, the man is here to make a tidy profit then jump ship, he owns 4 or 5 other major sporting franchises, how dedicated to Arsenal is he really ? I want Arsenal to be owned by someone who has the heart and desire to make Arsenal the best, the current board and Kroenke seem interested in putting in as little as possible for maximum returns - to the detriment of the squad. This attitude is despicable.
In my opinion, better to be run by a businessman who will take a profit out but maximise the money in first than to be run by a guy full of "passion" with zero business acumen. Kroenke has NEVER SOLD A SHARE in ANY of his sports companies. He's in for the long haul, not to make quick money and quit. Hating his moustache and silence bears absolutely no relevance to his abilities as a businessman. I'm not surprised he hasn't been over much to watch games. What he has done is brought some amount of stability to the club - we all now know he owns it, and can move forward from that point. His style has always been to install trusted people to run things for him rather than doing everything himself. Smart guy.
Grizzly I have to take issue with your opinion, this sit there and do nothing attitude, bordering on being apathetic. Why you (and piksie) are so confident that Arsene and the board's current methods will magically turn us into a super power is beyond me, for 6 seasons we can see where this policy has taken us, it has eroded the spirit in the club/squad and the quality, slowly but steadily. At EVERY point in these 6 years (take the squad quality season by season) you can see the erosion, less and less quality in the team. We've gone from a team that had 9 or 10 top players to a team that has 3 maximum and I am being generous. Our current path, if unchanged, will slide us further from where we need to be, small changes are not good enough, we need big changes. The board are to weak, they play it safe, Usmanov would shake things up somewhat and that is what we need, the fear of failure needs to be present for all and sundry, we've gone stale.
Bonstar, how you can claim Usmanov, or, in fact, infer, Usmanov has zero business acumen is beyond me. Have you not heard how he managed to turn his £2b into £12b ??? That is the person who should be running Arsenal, not Kroenke, a man with no passion for the club who has not moved us forward or added any stability whatsoever to the club as you claim but overseen us during our most turbulent period under Wenger and awful run of results for over 50 years !!!
I didn't claim Usmanov to have zero acumen, stated previously that his business experience would be very welcome. It was in response to your comment of "I want Arsenal to be owned by someone who has the heart and desire to make Arsenal the best." I also want that, but not just anyone who loves the club. It needs to be someone who also knows exactly what they're doing from a business perspective. Kroenke I believe will increase the clubs marketing and overseas sales potentials. In an article on the Times website you find this: "Arsenal chief executive Ivan Gazidis has stressed that there is no formal wage ceiling and the club is now focused on improving their commercial revenues. These lag around £50million behind Manchester United, largely because 10-year deals were negotiated in 2004 with Nike and Emirates to secure money up-front to fund building the Emirates. However, a new commercial team has been put in place since Gazidis’ arrival in 2009 and the club is producing results ahead of their targets." They are moving, and doing things, and I believe the pace of it will improve now that Kroenke is on board. The club needs success in the next 2 years to maximise return from their upcoming contracts - Kroenke and Usmanov can BOTH see that. I'd rather have Usmanov on board and everyone pulling in the same direction.
I see. I can only see Usmanov being on the board as a good thing, rather than Kroenke being surrounded by a bunch of spineless yes men, Usmanov would challenge the way we do things and hopefully through debate decisions will be made that will benefit the club. We cannot just hope that being self sufficient will be adequate for us to survive in the coming years, what happens if being self sufficient isn't enough and we slide further ? WE MUST halt the slide forthwith and then aim to be in the position that Barcelona are in, buying players to supplement home grown talent, the home grown talent needs to be of a higher standard though because lets be honest, the likes of Diaby, Denilson etc are simply not good enough and we are wasting our time trying to make them good enough when they've had season after season to prove that they are. We need a solid group of players, men who can lead the kids then take it from there. Priority number one should be making the team difficult to beat, we are light years away from being in this position though.
I cant believe soo many arsenal fans still think: a). The money we've made from selling our best players has just been plunged back into the club to pay off the debt. It has'nt - it's gone straight into the pockets of the board. b). We need to keep our spending down for the 'long-term' future of the club. The reason the club is not keen to spend cash is two fold: 1. Wenger's 'philosophy'. 2. Most of the board members have been selling all their shares so therefore have no interest in plunging the clubs money into the squad. I'll use this quote again because its soo true.. "Arsenal has all of its major commercial contracts coming up for renewal in the next couple of years. "It's no secret that to maximise the value of those you want to have success on the field and be winning trophies. To do that you need to invest now in building a winning team. This is simple commercial logic."
If nothing else I also believe that if the club is not successful on the pitch and winning, it will harm our commercial interests. The reason is obvious. We would get less exposure and who would want to be associated with a club that wasn't winning. Getting the finance right is one thing but that itself won't last if we don't have success on the pitch.
Spot on Robin, one leads to the other, the board have lost sight of this and seem to be opting for "existing" rather than "competing".
In what way has the money gone into the pockets of the board being the shareholders take no dividends from their shareholdings ? I think i'm correct in saying Usmanov has said the shareholders should be paid a dividend
Well it probably hasn't. It has been sitting in the back making the Balance Sheet look good. It would have been better spent making the team look and play good
I never said I expect us to become a superpower, I said that with new rules, decreased debt and a proper business model we would be ready to win. I'm not as hung up on trophies as many, do I want Arsenal to win the next 10 league titles ? Probably not. I am a fan but when things gets predictable the attraction reduces/disappears. What I want from Arsenal a team who entertain me, compete against the best and put themselves in with a chance of winning trophies, but above all that is a club with a solid financial base (long term security) I know will be around in 10, 20 years time and not bankrupt or struggling in the lower leagues because we stretched ourselves competing with the foreign billionaires spending desperate for success. I know this is old hat but I was watching Arsenal in the early 80s, we were average, fighting for a 6th place finish which secured EUFA Cup football and a decent cup run was as good as we got, we would celebrate hard beating Tottenham, we would celebrate a cup semi-final appearance, the game has moved on I know that and everything is built around the Champions League but there really is only one spot up for grabs there, Chelsea, Man City and Man Utd have almost endless funds to succeed and they've proved for years now they're prepared to use it. The climate has changed...
That should have been bank. Cash is a current asset. Stick it in the bank and your balance sheet looks good was what I was trying to say. As long as the balance sheet stays that way, the shares keep their value. At some point though it will fall should the gate and other income be affected if we do not do well on the pitch and a lower bottom ine on the profit and loss account begins to impact on the balance sheet. Who knows how long Stan is in for? He obviously saw a viable business model in Arsenal and I stress business, business as opposed to sport. This club cannot afford to miss out on the CL since getting back in the following season is not a guaranteed proposition. If we go out of the CL, we could be out of it for years. Just look at Liverpool. CL champions one year and how much of CL action have they seen over the past 4 seasons?
The climate has changed alright Grizzly but like many, I would want to see us up there again. I recall the days when we finished just enough to make the UEFA cup but since then we have taken the domestic league 5 times and with countless cups in our trophy room. There was a time not too long ago when it was Utd and us in the Community Shield. Now that seems so far away in one's memory. I don't relish in the slide of our club. We are not about merely making up the numbers. I'm not saying you are but I feel we deserve better than what we have at the moment.
RVB - when we were winning league titles the Russian billionnaire had only just got started and the Arabs were nowhere to be seen, Man Utd didn't start spending big until Abramovic really took hold. Chelsea have spent net £436m on transfers since 2003, Man City have spent almost the same though clearly the majority of their spend is over a shorter period. Do I want Arsenal to try competing with this, simple answer is no and I say that because it could ruin us. What I should say is that the 'slide' is less of a drop from us, but more of a measure of progress (if that's the correct term) made by other teams (notably the spending clubs)
Its amazing how its almost universally accepted that we are F**ked this season. It is still very early days, and we had a very tough start of season fixture list. I think "dont panic" is the order of the day.
Well because the board are selling their shares while the club is boasting record profits. If you think about it it makes sense.
Selling shares is representative of the VALUE of the club, but it doesn't affect profits one jot. It doesn't cost the CLUB anything if ANY of the shareholders buy or sell shares.
