Billionaires, as we all know, are the best of us. The people who matter the most, the ones we all aspire to be like, and who give most to society.
Forbes annual list of these wonderful people was released this week, and it showed that Stan Kroenke, whose company KSE own 100% of Arsenal, is the second richest owner in the NFL with a net worth of $8.7 billion.
He falls in behind Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper ($11.6 billion), but ahead of Miami Dolphins Steve Ross ($7.6 billion) and the Dallas Cowboys Jerry Jones ($6.8 billion).
In terms of Kroenke’s standing across all the amazing billionaires listed, he comes in at #167 overall, but if he were to combine his wealth that of his wife Ann Walton (#244 – $6.5 billion), he could well rocket up the charts.
Our former minority shareholder, Alisher Usmanov, comes in at #106 with a fortune estimated in the region of $12.6 billion. He sold his shares in Arsenal to the American in a deal worth around $720 million, making him a substantial profit on the investment he made that he repeatedly said he wouldn’t sell to his rival.
Kroenke has had full control of Arsenal since September of last year, during which time he has made a personal $1.6 billion investment into a new stadium for the LA Rams.
At the same time, Arsenal staff have been told to cut costs wherever possible; we lost three key players to long-term injury this season and didn’t replace any of then; failed to spend a single penny in January beyond a loan deal for Barcelona outcast Denis Suarez; and the ice-cream fridge from the press refreshments room has been removed.
Arsenal’s transfer budget this summer could be as low as £40m, depending on where we finish this season, although Champions League qualification could see it raised to around £100m.
Rumours that we’re going to bid for the top half of Neymar are unfounded.
‘He sold his shares in Arsenal to the American in a deal worth around $720 billion’.
Was Dr Evil behind this by any chance?
And he only has $12.6bn left.
He has been splashing the cash ever since! Party time for Alisher!
$720m!
Corrected. Thanks
You know, if you’re going to run a free service that lets me access all kinds of Arsenal content I wouldn’t otherwise get, you could at least get your fucking facts right.
?
Bring back David Dein. We need a Mr Arsenal to help us here
The wanker sold us off to this leech. He’s responsible in some part for our mediocrity in the past many years.
‘Deal worth $720 billion’, i think Blogs has over stated this by some order of magnitude. I think you’ll find it’s $720 million, unless of course the exchange rate temporarily tanked.
Spend some fucking money … you can’t take it with you. I would if I had that much. If my wife let me. She would probably lash it on clothes and the grandkids. And a billion on Christmas. We could get Mbappe for a billion.
For a billion I’d buy Tottenham and make sure they never played again.
If we don’t get to CL, there’s £40m to spend. If we get to CL it becomes £100m.
I’m no billionaire but I figured you had to invest to get success and this approach seems to be counter-productive. I.e if we’re good enough to get there we spend more on a successful team, if not we stick with a failing team?
Unfortunately even amongst the bunch of crooks that could own Arsenal, in Stone Krunk we appear to have the least willing to invest. But even if it was Asslosher Ussrmanov or that African chap Diego Mangoat it feels like we’d still be under a cloud of controversy, although perhaps one that ‘let it rain’ a little more favourably. And as sad as it is I’d really not expect a big overhaul during the summer, even if we have £40million they’ll still say that its largely for contracts. They’ll also use Sven’s departure as a reason not to spend, as they… Read more »
It always boggles my mind why there is any need for any one person to have more than say, £10M.
Hoarding money to do what with it?
I have needs
Special ones, we’d all agree.
Buy an NFL and Football team perhaps.
And move the NFL team from your home town to another city muahahahaha
It’s an addiction with these people just like the little rat that ruined Formula 1 racing!
You cannot spend these sums in a lifetime and yet they want more.
Does it really matter if you have 1 or 2 billion more than you had last year once you get up to these levels?
It is greed pure and simple and is the blight of the society we have created for ourselves where everything revolves around money.
4 Liverpudlians wrote a song about these people:”Money can’t buy you love!”
There is truth in that and perhaps it is the problem.
People who say money can’t buy you love have obviously never been to Thailand.
I can see Richie that you are into ladyboys
I guess to make sure the future generations are looked after, or fear of financial ruin.
“Hoarding money to do what with it?”
New car, caviar, four-star daydream. Think I’ll buy me a football team.
What difference does it make how much money someone wants to make?
To pass down to future generations of your family and to help bolster causes you believe in. Unfortunately Kroenke doesn’t seem to believe in anything other than hunting exotic animals and evicting people.
I’m a bit conflicted with your argument around investment blogs. On the one hand, Kroenke could absolutely be doing more to invest in Arsenal (in some form), however, I also look at the situation Man City are in, with the way they’ve been ‘financially doping’ and I wonder if (which we know he wouldn’t anyway) Kroenke did want to invest, how we could technically achieve this without falling foul of FFP. If I could play armchair Arseblog editor here, perhaps there’s an opportunity to take a look at the possibilities in a bit more depth on an Arsecast with someone… Read more »
Well said!
The sentiment is great, but seeing as how Kroenke won’t invest in any shape or form it would just highlight something else that won’t happen, about which we can moan.
This!
The way forward is investing in quality scouting and recruitment, which doesn’t take billions. Get back to buying low and selling high. Look at Liverpool, took a few years but they accumulated the cash to really push for honours. CL final, title race two years in a row. Spurs have done similar. We did it under David Dein. We should have fought to keep Mislintat and worked on this area of the club.
there is nothing wrong in theory with self sustaining but when most of your competition in league and out of league don’t care about that model or have other ways to circumvent ffp rules it’s really hard to stay competitive. We are lucky that we even stayed top 4 towards the end of AW run before he finally didn’t. Liverpool finally got its act together, Chelsea and city circumvent the rules, and ManU is richest club in England. For so long at least one of those four would make mistakes and Wenger sneaked in. Spurs are on a good run… Read more »
Doesn’t Man City Owners funnel some players through their “off-shore account” MLS team? They’ve got a quite a few maneuvers that skate around FFP don’t they?
Don’t the owners own a country basically and all the commercial brands associated with that invest into the club? Isn’t that how they get around all this ffp crap?
Infrastructure isn’t part of financial fairplay, Kroenke has been happy to spunk £34million in the last 2 years of “our money” on fixed assets. He could have put that money in himself, leaving more money for transfers. He could also take care of the stadium debt in any year he chooses, or even for he remainder of the bonds. If he did that for just 5 years? He’d create roughly an extra £110million for transfers over that period. This guy clearly has no intention of ever making an investment in the club, which is fair enough… But he’s previously said… Read more »
Tight arse cunt
Got 3 injuries and replaced none? To be expected.
Didn’t spend a penny bar a loan deal? Unsurprising.
Got rid of the ice-cream fridge? #KroenkeOut
That was the killer for me. #prayforourjournalistbretheren
Getting rid of the ice cream fridge was a cold business decision.
the days of free ice cream have been and cone.
How about the pricks at the top actually sort out FFP and stop fucking about. Rumours are that the investigation into Man City is to be reopened again but I personally doubt any good will come of it.
The Arsenal are a well run club and if we had a level playing field to operate in I’m certain we would be competing again.
I’m expecting down votes so bring it on.
You have my upvote
And my bow!
How to punish Man City? I’m all for them getting points deducted, but unfortunately that would leave Liverpool to win the league, and nobody wants that. Kick City out of next seasons Champions League instead.
Have Liverpool dodged around FFP? I’d much prefer them to win the league than $hitty
I think our derby against MU will be very crucial. It will be our last match against the top 6 teams while the others still have a 2 or 3 games like that. If we won’t lose at the weekend and manage to get the 3 points against weeker opponents – we will have a very good chance to finish in the top 4.
And I think 100m would put us in a very good position.
Just imagine our squad with the pair of L.Hernandez+Malcom (or N.Pepe)
I didn’t realise Man Utd were based in London – thanks for pointing that out. I guess it makes sense, seeing as how many Man Utd fans there are here.
Or perhaps they have moved to Derby?
Like Wimbledon playing in Milton Keynes!
The only turn on in an article about Kroenke is “the ice-cream fridge from the press refreshments room has been removed”. haha, love it. Not like love it for the fact that it has been removed, if it has really been removed because who wants an ice cream fridge being removed from the press room, but you could have it worse, an ice-cream fridge without ice-creams. But then again, who said that it already had ice-creams in it in the first place. All hail ice-cream and #KroenkeOut
Cool, but why’s the hate on billionaires. Sure, there are some shady individuals here and there, but the over generalization makes it sound like some ideological nonesense.
Because they’re the ones with the resources, influence and power to make the world a better place for the other 99% of the population, but they don’t. Instead they hoard or squander their resources, and use their influence and power to keep themselves rich while keeping everyone else down. They might not be hurting YOU directly, but they fuck humanity in general in the arse. Kroenke is like a man with a classic Aston Martin locked in his garage. He doesn’t take it out, or even turn over the engine. He wont let you drive it, or even sit it… Read more »
Spot on Theoptimist. I only want to have a billion dollars because I’m young and when I get older I want to buy an F-22 Raptor decomissioned so I can be a badass mofo and fly at Mach 3 and enjoy myself. Honestly
I think everyone is missing the main point of note in this article: who keeps ice-cream in a fridge?!?
The avarice of people like the Kroenkes is literally killing the planet, all so they can add a few extra zeroes to their high score.
Leech.
Stole it out of my mouth
Jeez, think you could whinge a bit more?
Transfer budget of £40,000,001 if we qualify for next season’s Champions League.
(I will stop making this joke at some point, but not yet)
I’m not going with the train of dislaking billioners just because they’re billioners. If you make that money then good for you, great, you have earned it. Many might disagree, but this discussion becomes very political, which I wouldn’t prefer in discussions about football. Football should unite fans regardless of their politics, religion, ethinicity, sexual orientation, etc.
Now what this particular billionare should do with regards to one of his companys, Arsenal, that’s a relevant topic.
Stan is not the man, he is truly awful and I wish he had never been introduced to Arsenal!!!!
Not sure how to take your introduction. I hope you are being sarcastic. Billionaires are the best of us?