Alisher Usmanov has released a short statement confirming that he is selling his stake in Arsenal to majority shareholder Stan Kroenke.
The Uzbek-born billionaire currently holds 18,695 shares in the club (30.04%) but is accepting an offer of £29,419.64 per share from the American, which will net him upwards of £550 million; a profit of around £300 million on his initial investment.
Usmanov’s statement reads: “I have decided to sell my shares in Arsenal Football Club, which could be the best football club in the world.
“I wish great success to this wonderful football club and to everyone whose life and career are connected with it.”
It remains unclear why Usmanov has chosen to sell his shares at this particular time, although the decision has upset the Arsenal Supporters’ Trust who’ve labelled it a ‘dreadful day’ for Arsenal. As recently as last October, Usmanov had claimed he wasn’t overly interested in selling his shares.
There had been rumours that he might join his former Red & White Holdings partner Farhad Moshiri in investing in Everton, but according to the BBC, he has no intention of doing that. He’s also been linked with a purchase of AC Milan.
For more on what happens next, check out our short Q&A with Phil Wall of the AST.
afraid will become just like man utd. glazers
yup because they’ve done really badly since they took over.
No, we will be much worse. The Glazers actually spent money, I don’t believe the Kroenke family will
It’s hard to take to an owner with seemingly no emotional investment in the club. But at the same time we’ve spent some money recently, I think the squad looks pretty good, the new management structure seems to make sense, Emerey seems to be the type of guy I would have liked to come in after Arsene and even saying goodbye and replacing him has been handled well.
I’d like to see a bit of passion from him, but that aside I don’t think we have much to complain about do we?
This is how it looks now. Just wait until your money is being used to pay Kroenke’s loans. This guy won’t invest in this team, and he doesn’t care about Arsenal. This is the worst day in my life since I started to support this club almost 30 years ago.
You must be having a great life, considering nothing that happens with or for Arsenal has any impact on your life beyond the imagined.
I think what speaks volumes is the fact that Kroenke hasn’t come out and said anything at all. The only thing we’ve heard from his camp has been directly to the remaining Arsenal shareholders who he is in the process of squeezing out. He nor KSE has done anything at all to address the millions of Arsenal fans in London, and around the world. That most likely boils down to the fact he knows he doesn’t have to. As surely if the Kroenke’s genuinely cared about how the Arsenal fan base and wider footballing public perceived him and KSE as… Read more »
Kronke shouls release a statement as to what his intentions are now that he has taken control….or not- he can do whatever he wants now
He doesn’t have to.. That’s the idiotic part of the whole thing!
The fact that no one is optimistic about this takeover a bad omen in itself. It’s up to kroenke to prove us wrong I guess
balls
we are screwed
No more ‘we’ I’m afraid
There you have it folks, the move from higbury to the Emirates was now a complete waste of time. Because now this cunt will throw us back into cash saving mode to help pay off the loan he’s going to get to fund the takeover.
Nice way to do this a few days before the opening game of the season. Really shows just how much he has no fucking clue
Plonker.
Unrelated to this article. I just saw Lucas Perez going into Shoreditch town hall with a smartly dressed man, I’m assuming his agent. I wished him well wherever he’s going and they both said thanks. I’d guess that his situation will be sorted sooner rather than later.
That’s it really….
That was me with Lucas. He is signing for AC Shoreditch today, pending a medical at The Ditch HQ
Getting Married?
Perez is already married if I am not wrong.
No, because he’s leaving the epic Arsenal we are getting a divorce.
We are doomed. There is no Wenger too.. to save our asses now that we have successfully kicked him out.
Look at what the Yankee has done so far to the other teams he owns.
Oh! My poor old Arsenal.
I know Arsene’s wages were high but do you really think he has nearly 2 billion quid handy to buy out the Kroenkes?
The point is we don’t have have anyone to lean back onto. Love him or hate him but you can’t deny the fact that he had our backs when we needed him.
I worried that there is no such person available in this club to save us from this money mongrel.
What exactly do you think he would have done if he was still manager to make this situation less shitty? Nothing….cos there’s nothing he could have done.
It just amuses me how when anyone criticises Arsene these days it’s pathetic for dragging him into every & any conversation & yet on the other side it’s always ok to bring him up when it suits.
I’m really not getting the hysteria behind this takeover. Sure, the AST are mad, but we would expect them to be mad, right? Yes, AST meetings are gone, but they were huge venting sessions anyway. Did it really change where Arsenal finished in the table? For the average fan, is this going to really matter, or change how they view Arsenal? Sure there’ll be some carping in the short term but if we win matches, everyone will forget. If we don’t, well this will just become another crutch we use to explain our chronic under-performance (like stadium move, Dein, Wenger,… Read more »
-you won’t live “long term”…..sorry…but great that you are happy, and can use wrongdoings of the past to explain/justify current as well as future failings…..The performance records of Kroenke’s sports investments are easy to find, should you ever be bothered….Usmanov is sensible to withdraw his investment and collect a profit….
That’s a flawed comparison. American sports just do not operate in the same way. The LA Rams do not have to perform well to please fans in Europe, Asia and Africa. Arsenal do. The LA Rams do not have to qualify for playoffs year after year to stay relevant. They will stay relevant merely by being in the NFL. Arsenal do have to at least qualify for the Champions League semi-regularly. My point is Kroenke is not incentivized for Arsenal to do badly on the pitch. If we keep finishing 6th for a decade, his investment suffers too! If we… Read more »
The other thing is American Sports have a draft system where the worst teams are rewarded with the best picks, owners of bad teams use this as an excuse behind “tanking” and not spending money, trying to get the best young players all at the same time without spending any money. If an epl team is bad, it just makes it harder to attract the top talent
Fiiinnally! A voice of reason! Waitanimmit. Is this one of those new age AI bots?!
No kidding!
Time for FC Arsenal?
Maybe some of the small shareholders who get bought out would like to re-invest in a club for the fans.
who could he sell to at a price he wants who wouldnt just accept a better offer from kroenke? he had no-one to sell to who wouldnt just sell to kroenke except arsenal fans who dont have enough money to be taken seriously.
that is my guess.
The fans could have bought the shares if we had been serious enough about it.
A cool £300m profit… not too shabby eh!? If we can make ourselves understand why a footballer (Perez) would find it difficult to accept a £1.5m paycut, it is pretty easy to understand why eventually someone would take their £300m profit and disappear… regardless of the absurd amount of money they already have stockpiled in their various accounts and assets.
And there goes any chance Arsenal ever had of competing.
An owner that say’s he will never invest is never going to spend on the squad.
The supporters trust are usually negative about most things but they are correct in saying this is a sad, sad day for Arsenal…
How do you guys think Arsene would have reacted in the press over this?!? Emery was a yesman at PSG and that’s why the board were after him.
Oh, ffs, I get dumber by the minute reading shit like this.
Now the Gazidis to Milan rumors make much more sense, why stay in a place where you answer to a run-a-muck billionaire who is content to be middling and uncompetitive, what a terribly sad day to be a Gooner.
Thanks for your article on the guardian Andrew. Hopefully sheds some light on this issue to fans of other clubs who think this is some great new development for Arsenal. I have had 4 people text me today saying wow, looks like arsenal are gonna be getting a lot of investment. They have no clue…
Wenger gone. Usmanov selling. Gazidis jumping ship. Welcome to the Final Frontier.
Arsenal FC under construction again, hope it’s going to be solid.
Oh shit—it’s Mr. Creosote!
This is an absolute disaster for the club. There really is zero possible upside. Kroenke was never going to invest a penny, so that won’t change. All accountability and transparency will disappear completely. KSE dividends (ahem, “management fees”) will come back without a doubt – and won’t even be made public till a year after the fact.
Essentially, whatever vestigial traces of Arsenal the football club will now be gone – it will just be a football business.
RIP Arsenal Football Club – welcome to Arsenal Football Company.
You mean KSE London Soccer Corporation.
So this is why Gazidis is jumping ship.
Is this to do with British crackdown on Russian affiliated money?
after me, the deluge
Excerpt from article on Guardian:
“… For instance, if Kroenke or his wife – the guarantor of his loan – were to die, that would be considered a default on the loan….”
How is this legally tenable? How can someone dying result in default of loan? Can anyone get in touch with Swiss Ramble and ask him to write about this?
Should have done a crowdfunding exercise Blogs – £550m / 60000+ season ticket holders and waiting list would have worked out at under 10k each. Or a lot less if you wider consider interest from fans around the world – apparently our global fan base is 27m, who knew.
Looks like it would have been a decent investment too given what Usmanov walked away with…