The Arsenal Supporters’ Trust have urged all shareholders to vote against the resolutions at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Thursday to re-appoint Sir Chips Keswick and Josh Kroenke to the Board of Directors.
The group’s ‘no vote’ is a means of demonstrating their dissatisfaction at the current ownership and governance arrangements at the club but in essence, it’s only symbolic as the re-election of the duo is a given.
A statement on the AST website reads: “Arsenal Supporters’ Trust (AST) to vote against resolutions at Arsenal Holdings AGM on Thursday
“The Arsenal Supporters’ Trust will vote against the resolutions at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Thursday to re-appoint Sir Chips Keswick and Josh Kroenke to the Board of Directors.
“The AST urges all of its members who are individual shareholders, and other shareholders, to do the same.
“The reason for this course of action is to demonstrate dissatisfaction at the current ownership and governance arrangements at the Arsenal Football Club.
“In particular we feel that the present directors are not acting with sufficient independence, nor representing the interests of the small shareholders, or the future custodianship of the Club.
“In 2013 the Arsenal Supporters’ Trust commissioned an independent review of corporate governance at Arsenal. This report, and the failings it identified, have been well-publicised.
“In particular it identified an ageing board lacking in diversity without the breadth of skills required to run a modern professional football club. All of the non-executive directors have been in office for far too long and are not regarded as independent under the corporate governance code. There is therefore no independence from the controlling shareholder, no one free of conflict of interest, and not enough diversity on the board or people with relevant professional skills, such as football expertise.
“Our action and vote is a statement that we believe significant corporate governance change is needed. Whatever the outcome of Thursday’s AGM we call upon the directors at Arsenal to address these significant corporate governance failings.”
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@Stillberto will be at the AGM on our behalf tomorrow, we’ll have his take on events tomorrow evening.
We should all support this. We have a football club sitting back and not doing as well as it could on the pitch, whilst Gazidis can still get a £900k bonus for making profits.
Make everything dependent on having success on the pitch and everything else will follow from that.
Pissing into the wind…..
Kroenke couldn’t care any less.
The club aren’t deaf.
They’re just hamstrung by the majority owner who won’t be losing any sleep or making any changes.
Gazidis has the art of talking without actually saying anything nailed down.
Not really sure what anyone’s expecting to achieve from this?
Hadn’t heard of the expression ‘pissing in the wind’ before. It is quite an accurate statement though. Get yo shoes and pants all dirty. Must really suck.
I think the expression is a very old one from the navy.
On the old sailing ships you’d very quickly learn to piss off the leeward side.
I agree this is just a symbolic move that does nothing. I think the AST is doing what they can I guess but whats the point in this? If there was no majority owner then I can understand trying this but with SK I can’t see anyone really paying attention to this.
The old sailing ship story seems more interesting. Might we discuss it a bit more?
I agree that a shakeup of the board is completley needed, and i also agree that the likes of Kronke JR. should not be on the board with little to no knowladge of the club on its history.
HOWEVER…
We can’t complain about an “ageing board lacking in diversity” and then vote the youngest memeber off it, as useless as he sounds…
Ok ageing and nepotistic members
Hey as i said, Kronke Jr is not a guy i necessarily want on the board. Actually none of them are. I just remember when Hill-Wood left (Talk about nepotisim) we all wanted a younger more diverse board. But we also wanted Bob Wilson, to head the board up as chairman. Bob is a great bloke and one of the few Arsenal players past or present i have met, but he is not exactly a young guy, and had also been out of the loop when it came to running a modern club. But Jr dosent need a place on… Read more »
Arsenal. Always something
Forget these AST clowns
Stan? Is that you?
The AST has very little support from the fan base now.
Just because they have the odd good idea doesn’t stop them being a bunch of clowns.
Kronke recently bowed to public outcry on his hunting channel suggesting that he does, or someone close to him at least, listen. Even if he doesn’t act on public demand often, officially demanding stuff is our only option/tactic/ability against things we do not agree with.
Let’s hope that one day he listens to an idea that actually helps us on the pitch and not his coffers.
Where was K.Jr on the Wenger in/out front? Personally don’t think the board is 100% the problem, to me it’s more split: 20% board, 20% Wenger, 10% players and 50% Kroenke. The board are really just lapdogs to Kroenke, nothing happens without his say and are there to grow the business. Wenger is there (from their point of view) to help obtain their financial/business goals via managing the football aspects of the club. Players are there to perform to their maximum ability using the system they have been coached to utilize. If the players were all in form and working… Read more »
Possibly his attention is elsewhere even more then usual, with his shiny new NFL stadium in LA still running into delays in building (and Being in LA).
From the rumours I heard, Kroenke Jr. and Gazidis were actually AGAINST Wenger renewing his contract, but Wenger backdoored them by meeting directly with Stan after the FA Cup and before the board meeting.
that was my point, people want change then ask to change the guy petitioning for change.
Where are these rumors from? I could just say that AW didn’t want to return but rumors I heard the Board begged him to stay.
This is fascinating, my job role is literally to analyse corporate policies and report against governance codes and good practice guidelines, to produce reports for institutional shareholders advising them to vote for or against annual resolutions like this.
Is that for the mafia?
Thank you for your interest in our affairs.
exactly and rightly so
shocker: arsenal fc is a business? football is a business?
I guess I’m in the minority. But I’m not sure who could be a better, “safe” owner than Kroenke? Certainly not the Uzbek and his morals. I appreciate the way this club is run.
Thank you Sir Chips for your comment.
I had a question, you decided to avoid it. [shrug]
Finnish do a little research on Kroenke’s ownership of his other sport brands.
He most recently pulled his NFL team from St Louis and moved it to LA because he couldn’t blackmail the government into implementing a sales tax so the residents could pay for a new stadium. LA would pay the most so he moved the team.
All Kroenke gives a shit about is rate of return, nothing else. All his teams perform poorly, it’s more profitable to just participate then to invest and win.
I prefer stability and self-financing to external money sugardaddies. The American sports system is different in so many ways, that it’s not useful to make comparisons with English football. And, by the way, the LA Rams are leaders in their division.
Funny that you mention they’re top of their division. It has coincided with them getting rid of their old, poorly performing head coach and appointing a fresh young coach.
I wonder if there’s anything in that approach that could be applied to Arsenal? Hmm…
Have a vote 😉 but I’m still Wenger-in. We all have reasons for our opinions, and I respect the views of others even if I disagree. For me, Wenger-outism is just another version of Trump’s presidency and Brexit. A sign of the social media polarisation era of mankind.
(I’m not an expert on American football, but I have understood they also have an excellent new young quarterback, Jared Goff.)
He was there last season in his rookie year. Barely got played even though he was the #1 draft pick at the time (that’s about my limit – I only get to see highlights on the BBC). Fair enough if you are in favour of Arsene staying, but it’s not comparable to Trump’s “policies” or the reasoning behind (the majority of, as far as I can tell) people’s voting for Brexit. There is a direct comparison available against other teams in the same league (same city, even) doing things differently and getting better results. The two things you referenced are… Read more »
Re: Brexit and Trump. They, too, are an example of the impatience of people in the social media age. Of course, the same problem exists in all sports these days – the tyranny of the masses leads to demanding the “easy” solution suggestion of Change = fire-hire.
I personally am happy that The Arsenal are in steady hands. And I’m also okay with others expecting quick fixes, because I’ve researched the psychology behind this interesting modern phenomenon.
There’s a large portion of the supporters that feel the same way. Whilst Stan certainly isn’t particularly good for the club, there are loads of worse options and most think Usmanov is one of them.
What a waste of time.
The club (and Kronke) don’t give a toss what AST thinks.
Although to be fair, on most other subjects the vast majority of supporters don’t give a toss what AST thinks anymore.
Yep, nothing will happen.
If one of the richest men in the world and second largest shareholder can’t do anything about it, do you think chips or silent give a crap about the little guy’s protest vote?
It kind of gets overlooked given the on-field problems..but our board seriously needs freshening up. Glad AST are at least trying to draw attention to this
So we’ve gone from lack of independence and oversight to incompetence to now nepotism. Ok got it!
Damn right to vote against these people or dinosaurs. Time to be counted as a Arsenal supporter.
Where I disagree with the AST’s conclusion is that they seem to conclude that younger is better. I don’t care how old the board is, I just want it to be competent. I only want people that will move Arsenal to a higher level. I don’t care if they’re 18yrs old or 81 years old
You’re missing the point: the key sticking point is a lack of diversity in ALL aspects: Age, Gender, Ethnic Background, Relevant Football, Financial, and Governmental Skill and Expertise. The scientific research is clear that diverse teams are more successful due to the difference of opinion and experiences.
Scientific research, market research and most statistical analysis can both be used to produce the result you want. You just pick your target research group to suit the answer you want.
What’s more important is getting good people involved and if the options can give such diversity then great, but better to have good people than bad people just because of their diversity.
“Vote anyway you want. I own the club and will whatever the fuck I want.”
/S/ Stanley “the Weasel” Kroenke
Are you saying Chips may be off the menu? Sorry to be so flippant but this stuff is so far away from the pitch and its all conjecture and points of view of shoutey fans.