As part of a raft of new measures designed to block any future attempt to form a breakaway league, the Premier League, supported by The FA, have confirmed that all club owners will need to sign a new Owners’ Charter committing them to the core principles of the league.
In a statement released on Monday morning, the Premier League also committed to ‘additional rules and regulation’ and significant sanctions for those who breach them.
As well as working with UEFA, The FA, EFL, PFA and LMA to defend England’s football pyramid and the principle of progression through sporting merit, they’ve also enlisted the Government’s help to deliver appropriate legislation.
As seen at Old Trafford at the weekend, supporters continue to garner headlines with large-scale public protests.
The Premier League is promising to involve fans in discussions about the future of the game but warned that future protests should be carried out peacefully.
“Opposition to the proposed Super League united the whole of football, with the fans’ voice clearly heard,” says the statement.
“The Premier League recognises the strength of feeling and the right of fans to know what is happening.
“We are committed to maintaining close dialogue with supporters and their representatives, as we work with The FA and Government to identify solutions, but ask that all protests are peaceful.”
On the subject of fan involvement, the Arsenal Supporters’ Trust released a statement last night confirming it had met with Spotify founder Daniel Ek and consortium partners Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp and Patrick Vieira.
The 38-year-old Swede says he wants to buy the Gunners from the Kroenke family and reached out to the organisation to outline its plans for fan involvement.
“A constructive meeting was held and we were encouraged to hear their commitment to making the role of fans central to their proposals,” said the AST after Thierry Henry used Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football to reveal the talks.
“This is very welcome and we look forward to further dialogue.
“We will engage with anyone who has a serious proposal as it is important any current or future owner is aware of the importance of working with fans. We also continue to seek a constructive and meaningful dialogue with Stan and Josh Kroenke.
“Our message to all of them is simple: Football needs to change. Arsenal needs to change.”
You can read the full statement, here.
That’s a bit more like it – and about time too.
These cowboys – especially our cowboy, the biggest fucking cowboy of the lot – need to wind their fucking ‘do-as-you-like’ necks in and start toeing the line.
Unfortunately, I doubt anything concrete will come of Ek’s move. The Kroenkes have made their position clear and anyway, if Ek really wanted to do this he wouldn’t be so public about it. The only positive that could come from this is to just put more pressure on the Kroenkes to show a bit more respect to the fans and perhaps invest a bit more in improving the team.
Well, let’s see what happens.
When we got on the buses to go up to Anfield in 1989, no one gave us a prayer. In fact the Daily fucking Mirror screamed ‘You Don’t Have A Prayer, Arsenal’ on their back page.
The next morning, on their front page, they were more or less forced to print the words ‘Miracle Men.’
You never know in life. You never know… 😉🍺👍
I don’t get the “don’t go public” view (which Arsene also expressed). The idea here cannot be to let Kroenke quote his price and try to negotiate him down 10%.
All other things equal, I prefer it to be clear that an alternative is available, and ramp up pressure on KSE to sell, ideally well below their ‘preferred’ price. Otherwise it’s just a transaction – KSE get what they want, with minimal penalty for reaming the club for a decade.
The other ploy – by going public – not only generates media interest which in turn provides pressure but it is also something that clearly favours the PR opportunities for Ek and his famous trio – and makes Kroenke indulge in the one thing he hates more than anything – going public.
A clever ploy actually.
Apparently the first thing Ek wants to do if he takes charge of Arsenal is take the players off their million pounds a year fixed salaries and instead give them 0.01p every time they kick a football.
Penury for some then, I fear.
If it’s for every time they touch the football, he’ll go bankrupt within a month.
That joke isn’t getting old at all.
Fresh as a daisy.
Spoken by the worlds biggest stuck record…
Maybe Ozil likes daisies?
Sounds like a Smiths cover but they couldn’t secure the song rights…
And on cold leather seats, when it suddenly struck me, Daniel Ek just might buy the club after all (though probably not)
No Smiths fans, huh.
I was with ya!
So much for increasing the tempo of our attacking play.
If Henry and AST are going to be instrumental in making board decisions then I dont want Ek.
If Henry and the AST can raise the money for a bid, I’m sure they won’t need EK.
Agreed, I don’t like the idea of this club run by former players with no experience in that role. I want to give Arteta, Edu and Garlick this summer to see what changes are made. There’s also a question of there being too many decision makers. Fans should hold veto power when it comes to major decisions like the ESL but that’s it.
I completely misread that 😱
Edu was a former player, Mastermind.
Is a former player.
He also said “former players with no experience in that role.” Edu has that experience, short though it was, at Corinthians.
Interesting that the one Invincible who does have something of a track record post-playing is not in this Fab 4 – Overmars anyone?
Agree he’s got a decent record post-playing but, pedantry alert, Overmars was not an Invincible
He’s the one we genuinely should be trying to get back IMO. What he & Vander sar have done at Ajax is impressive & in reality the model we need to follow to compete. I would love to see the 2 of them brought in this summer to replace Edu & Vin. Let them decide on Arteta. These guys know what they’re doing
Who’s to say the others wouldn’t offer him a role? The other three will probably have executive advisory roles anyway – maybe even one of them (Vieira) getting the manager’s position.
It doesn’t take a private eye to deduce why Arteta is crawling up Kroenke’s backside.
I agree that Overmars should be a priority for Arsenal. Arsenal can’t simply copy Ajax’s model (or any club outside the too 5 leagues). Overmars would have to adapt. For one there’s a Premier League tax which means bargains are harder to come by, plus in the Eredivisie smaller clubs are happy to sell Ajax their best player for 8m or 12m euros. Our rival Prem clubs would be insulted by those bids. They’ve also signed a bunch of players who haven’t made the grade in the last five years, but there’s less focus on their failures because they can… Read more »
Overmars wasn’t part of the Invincibles, though.
A ‘98 double winner and a good mate of Bergkamp though.
Possibly his employers might have a problem with it. Unlike Henry, Viera or Bergkamp he is actively associated with a football club at the moment.
The AST announcement is in the right direction. Henry, Bergi and Pat’s moves are also very welcome. We must all unite and press for the Kroenke ownership model to end. I hope we can keep the protests going and press the government for change.
On paper, that’s a way to go. In the real, hard, business world there’s a big disconnect between any “pressure” that an alliance between AST, former players, fans, Mr Ek etc. can actually apply and KSE agreeing to consider selling (let alone actually selling). Anything is possible, but it’s just not likely I think.
As to the Govt., are they really going to create a precedent by somehow removing legitimate, but very unpopular, owners from businesses and handing control over to others? No matter how appealing that may be to Gooners, I doubt it.
Thankfully the majority of us want this to happen.
The minority are busily trashing Ek, the Three Musketeers and the proposed vehicle that will actually allow the opportunity for fans (including them) to have a say – but not one of them can come up with an alternative except more of the same KSE crap. Fuck that shit.
Based on comments on this space, not sure I agree that supporters should have ANY role in how the club is managed.
Why is that suddenly a requirement? It never was before. Riddle me that one.
Another one content with Stan.
Riddle me that.
I don’t know much about Ek’s proposed takeover, maybe I’m not looking hard enough or maybe there’s not much info out there, but why are you so eager to swap one billionaire owner you don’t really know for another?
I’m not sure simply changing owners is the answer if the question is why doesn’t the prem league protect the supporters by ensuring unfit owners aren’t allowed in?
Something like this from the regulatory authorities was inevitable. It will be interesting to see what the additional rules etc. are.
Although I think the AST does good work, its statement doesn’t move things on much. At the end of the day meetings between the AST, prospective buyers and former players don’t really matter. What matters are meetings between prospective buyers and KSE. Until/unless that happens, and something constructive arises as a result of course, it’s all background noise.
Our current situation is background noise – of a lavatory cistern on repeat.
Perhaps, but all these (much publicised) discussions don’t bring a change in ownership a second closer. Unfortunately, the only people who matter in any possible sale aren’t talking about it.
….yet.
I hope this will keep out these greedy owners and clubs like Barcelona who pushed for the esl because of their unsustainable business practices.
Yes, I hope we all do but don’t forget Barcelona are “owned” by their 140,000 or so members. Decisions regarding the direction of the club are made, ultimately, by the members who vote for the board every few years. It’s that kind of ownership model that many Gooners would, I suspect, want for Arsenal but it hasn’t stopped Barcelona moving close to the edge of bankruptcy and being a founder member of the ESL.
I’d only be interested if we’re an anarcho-syndicalist commune [and] we’re taking turns to act as a sort of executive-officer-for-the-week. But all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting by a simple majority, in the case of purely internal affairs, but by a two-thirds majority, in the case of more major issues.
“Help! Help! I’m being repressed! Come see the violence inherent in the system! Violence inherent in the system!”
What about a Survivor style tribal council?
All power to the
SovietsGooners.and what have the Romans ever done for us?
Nothing for us, a lot for Chel$ea.
The “socio” system of Barca and Real is one version of fan ownership, hopefully not the one that would be adopted in this country as it is extremely restrictive. Membership is limited and the members only have a say in their presidential elections. Candidates for the club presidency also need to be ridiculously wealthy IIRC, something about needing to post collateral in case it all goes belly up financially.
Yes, you’re right that presidential candidates need to post a bond (several million Euro I recall) but they can be removed by ballot which is still more than you can do in any major club here. Membership is limited, mainly by geography and also by “generational” restrictions to some extent. Both are used to ensure very close links to Catalonia are retained. The club is in a dire financial condition owing anywhere between £800 million to over £1 billion depending on who you read. I suspect, however, that because of what it represents (Catalonia etc.) and historically everything around it,… Read more »
This unsustainable business practices have contributed – significantly – towards the growth of the “product” (La Liga) that they operate in. They should be thanked
Well if they have to sign a charter that stops the super league or similar then maybe, just maybe, Stan and Josh might think the time is right to bail out?
On Arseblog we read today:
“What are their qualifications for running a Premier League football club? Where is their expertise in rebuilding something that has been in decline?”
This was a question ment to be for the Ek team and namely the ex gunners.
However I am very curious what is the reply if we address these questions to KSE
I’m not a big kroenke fan but the guy owned multiple sport’s franchises including winning a super bowl (as 30 percent owner) so he knew what he was getting into. Ek is going to have to do a leveraged buy out a la Man U -a lot of funds will need to come from the club to pay that off. Also not clear what the role for Henry, Viera & Dennis will be. Loved them all as players but not have been successful in football post playing.
The Arsenal sports franchise is 11th and on the verge of missing out European competition which could end up selling stars like Saka.
They appointed the successful Gazidis they stalled over the declining Wenger they let Raul ear Sven etc…
I am not sure where we can observe their “expertise”
You can argue they hired poorly (or should have fired Wenger years earlier). But they’ve largely just been hands off owners which means that this decline is almost entirely down to them hiring the wrong people (or failing to fire Wenger) – Wenger, Emery & now Arteta.
So bringing in a new owner who has zero experience with sports & is listening to players who have been failures post playing days is supposed to fix this?
I don’t think that means he knew what he was getting himself into in of itself, as the American sports system is very different to what we have over here. The ESL has in fact been viewed as an attempt to make football more like an American sports league.
There’s very little to suggest from their time with us that they know much about football all. But what’s even more damning has been their inability/unwillingness to learn or delegate tasks appropriately.
Yeah, I think we’ve all been football fans for long enough to know what an owner obsessed with winning looks like.
This season the Kroenke’s have probably spent more manhours doing ESL paperwork than they have deciding who our next coach is gonna be. They value revenue over success basically
While I am not saying they know loads , Josh k. A college level former athlete basketball, has been to most home games . Will people talking in his ear , he must have picked up something about the sport after 15 years. It’s not that complicated. To know a bit.
Although the old line ” the simpler the football the better, but simple is difficulty”
Stan I don’t think knows , but it’s Josh ‘s watch
Nitpicky perhaps but Ek is not pronounced like tech. It’s aike as in arse ache.
I think it’s supposed to read as “take-over” rather than “tech-over”. In Swedish the pronunciation of the E in Ek is more like the ea i “gear.”
You’re right about “take-over” and on that I stand corrected.
The ea as “gear” depends what part you’re from though. For the shit kickers down in Skåne it’s ache.
All these mispronunciation issues give me a real ball-Ek…
What Blogs says today is so true: “it was a board made up almost entirely of Arsenal fans who sold to Kroenke and Usmanov in the first place”. As fans we have to recognise we are very inconsistent and knee jerk in our reactions to things – that’s why we’re fans of the emotional rollercoaster of football I guess. But it makes it difficult to enact a clear plan. For example, not 2 years ago, fans were asking for more real Arsenal people in the key positions. So the Kronekes gave us Mikel and Edu, two former players. Everyone was… Read more »
At this point there is no way to compete financially with oil $$$, which really came to dominance (Chelsea AND City) in the last decade, which basically coincided with Arsenal going from a youth driven team (during stadium restructuring) to a more experienced model under Wenger’s waning years and since. If that major cash injection had not have occurred, I think Arsenal would have had more success (at least better chances at it). There are some unfortunate circumstances of timing here, but also some bad decision making. I don’t want some owner that will throw blood money around like at… Read more »
Good points.
What people want is this new and shiny toy who has the backing of three guys who once played for us, played very well in fact, but have failed to set the world on fire outside the pitch. This will magically solve everything.
It’s better than waiting for Kroenke and Arteta to solve everything.
The fans want the decline to stop.
The decline happened under the KSE watch.
Self sustained model needs energy generated from within and KSE had only taken energy from the system rather than giving for years. Please dont refernce Pepe and Partey because this money is only a drop compared on the actual money they have extracted not to mention the power of the property “The Arsenal”.
So you don’t really want a self-sustaining model. You want an owner who will come put huge chunks of cash into the squad.
Kroenke’s biggest flaw as an owner has simply been backing of Wenger when it became obvious that Wenger was slipping. But that’s also one thing that a lot of fans are proud of as well – Arsenal largely have given their managers a real opportunity to succeed or fail based on their own decisions.
This isn’t nearly as simple as a new owner comes in and suddenly we’re competitive.
So, I ask again – what is it exactly that the fans want? From the answers here, it’s obvious that different fans have different understandings of what is wrong. Some I would objectively disagree with (we have spent huge sums on transfers in the Kroenke era, and they’ve taken almost no money out of the club), some I agree with (we should trust our youth system more and look for up and coming gems in the transfer market), but it’s hardly a powerful argument for wholesale selling of the club is it? Oh, and by the way Daniel Ek is… Read more »
What is the “actual” money they have extracted? Until recently all I ever knew about was a few million in consulting fees for KSE.
You are correct. It’s total nonsense to suggest that huge sums have been extracted. It’s in the accounts if Kostas cares to look.
You are right. The money for the Kroenke’s is the asset of Arsenal Football Club and despite all that’s happened it’s still more valuable than when they took over. I mentioned in the previous post, to someone as rich as these guys this is the same as buying an investment property. The risk is virtually zero and by the asset increasing in value they are accruing wealth through equity. The consulting fees are probably just for cash flow and taxation avoidance purposes.
I’m not a supporter of KSE by any means but to say that the owners have “extracted” great amounts of money is not true – and the accounts show it.
They have taken some (relatively) small sums out of the club – about £3 million I recall for various “consultancy charges” . Now, you could well argue that’s £3 million too much, I would, but Pepe and Partey together cost around £112 million – hardly a comparison.
We should all be careful not to weaken perfectly legitimate arguments about the way the owners have run the club by OTT statements.
Just to reply to all of you. I apologise for spreading fake news. To be honest I haven’t look through the accounts. However I made a wrong assumption because even though we are supposed to be one of the richest clubs in the world, I have never seen that materialize in terms of transfer fees on ambition and performances. At least while the lead. We have the most expensive tickets merchandise tv rights sponsorships and one of the largest fanbase. If they are not sucking out real money then the cripple the future. And again sorry for misinformation PS I… Read more »
This can’t be said enough – our net transfer spend Wenger’s last few years & Emery was among the highest in all of Europe. The real issue is that Wenger never sold players & let everyone run their contracts down so getting player buys wrong was absolutely devastating.
Mustafi was one of the most expensive defenders in history. Xhaka cost more than Kante when he moved to Chelsea the same year. Perez – 20m. etc.
We let Ozil/Sanchez/Ramsey/Wojo/Jack leave for 15m + Miki. That should have been 150-200m in sales.
Broadcasting companies and the PL suddenly pretending to care about what fans think, is an absolute joke, they have no issues sending Newcastle fans to Brighton for Monday night football They only care because their existence depends on keeping the current structure together, not because they’ve suddenly grown any type conscience If clubs bypass Sky to broadcast their own games and cut out the middle man, then Sky will cease to exist, they’re not outraged, they’re panicking Gary Neville is just another champagne socialist Gary Lineker works for a broadcasting cartel that refuses to compete for its business in an… Read more »
This
I hope this works out. We don’t know whether he’ll be good at running a football club, but KSE has been so bizarrely incompetent (like letting Raul do dodgy deals with no form of oversight) that it’s unlikely he’ll be worse.
And of all the billionaires we could be bought by, he’s probably got the cleanest background we could hope for. Daily Cannon did an interesting (and depressing) piece on Wal-Mart’s exploitation of workers:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/dailycannon.com/2018/02/stan-kroenke-make-money/amp/
Self sustainability, ESL and what do fans want? Let me preface this by saying that the ESL is a terrible idea, a morally bankrupt one. While there has been much gnashing of teeth at the ESL, I think the following exchange between Arsenal owner Josh Kroenke and a fan group meeting is key to understanding why we are where we are. F: “Josh, you mentioned about class and tradition, and cited self-sustaining model. Clearly the self sustaining model isn’t working. When are you going to admit that it isn’t working and when are you going to start investing substantial funds… Read more »
The fact of the matter is these owners and this club lost money during a football boom because of awful decision making. Had better decisions been made this club would have cash in reserves to spend (after a bust) during a deflated market, or they could play it safe and not spend even during said crash. I think most fans are pissed not because money hasn’t been spent but because it’s been spent (and earned) poorly.
Great talk Harish!
While I still want to see #KroenkeOut based on what they tried to do, as time passes and the dust settles #RegulationIn feels more important.
Ek seems like his heart is in the right place but:
a) Kroenke probably won’t sell so it’s irrelevant
b) There’s still no guarantee with ANY billionaire owner that they won’t have a change of heart and do something that we all hate.
We need rules that stop any owner trying an ESL type move ever again.
I don’t think Henry and others would be given much influence if he buys. He’s using them to try to put pressure on KSE and get fans more positive. I have no doubt he can raise the money to buy the club himself without ex-players. What would make me positive about the whole thing was he bought the club, listed it, and made 51% of shares available. I actually think that may be his plan.
Barcelona + Real Madrid are both fan owned, and they’re both £1 billion + in the red Leadership comes from the top, and 5 Arsenal fans can’t agree on most things, let alone 51% of them Do we really want the club floated on the stock market? Which is basically a giant casino If they stick Arsenal shares on an open market, there’s no guarantee they’ll fall into Arsenal fan ownership, id imagine it’s highly unlikely that they would Are 51% of Arsenal fans qualified to appoint new directors every few years? Short term directors, leads to short term decision… Read more »
There is zero chance of that happening. No one puts a huge chunk of their net worth into an investment only to make themselves a minority partner. He would be subject to the whims of the fans then which is a horrible business decision – you don’t generally get to be a billionaire that way.
Although you are largely correct, he could create two classes of shares with different voting rights so a minority equity ownership retains majority voting control. Google did this. One possible way to make this work would be to turn fan involvement (equity or not) in to a monthly subscription open to people all across the world for say $20 per month, therefore creating a whole new revolutionary revenue model for the club. (500,000 “owners” at $20 per month would increase revenue by $120m per year, or about 35%). That would probably increase the value of the club to around $3Bn… Read more »
This is what I find scary: that we know so little about his/their plans that we are left with making guesses like him planning to make shares available.
Henry repeated the magical phrase “DNA” several times, but I would love for him to define it, and sketch out the plan to reinstill it.
I thought the ESL was actually rather a cup in real nature/format and a threat to the UEFA Champion’s League rather than the PL? And that all clubs were going to continue in the PL.
Despite the negative feeling toward the ESL, I do feel uneasy about the idea of locking in a status/situation for any body or league in perpetuity and remove future debates or discussions.
I don’t see Kroenke selling. Why would he? He can be an absentee owner and do nothing for the club. He’s content to let the club appreciate in value. He strikes me as the kind of guy who was bullied a lot as a kid and now it’s purely about having a sports empire. As an investment, sure, but sports teams are objectively a tricky investment. No, it’s more about being a “player” I suspect for Stan. He never got to sit with the cool kids, but at least now he can lord it over the other “cool” American owners.… Read more »
I agree that it’s unlikely Stan will sell and I really can’t see how any 50+1 buy out solution works in the “real” world. Anyway, we’ll see.
Does anyone know what Ian Wright’s postion is on the Ek bid? Seems to me he’s one of the legends most involved with the club and the fans and it is a little odd that he’s not involved – nor commented (at least to my knowledge).
#GETtheEkOUT
This clown is Glaziers 2.0. Saddle the club with billions of pounds of debt. Based on a company whose business model is ripping off musicians, but who doesn’t make, develop, or sell any products.
No thanks.
AST seem to be pinning their hopes on the government coming up with a 50+1 rule more than anything else, which makes sense as they’re maybe best placed to become the membership body that controls the club.
But what I don’t understand is the possible mechanism whereby anyone can “control” a club that was already bought legally by the current owners without putting up the money to buy the controlling interest – assuming the current owners were forced to sell? Arsenal’s valuation is reported to be about £2 billion, so who is going to provide the £1 billion or so – the AST? The fans? Hardly. I don’t see this Govt. coughing up the money, and Mr Ek won’t provide it unless he has control (why would he?). So how does it – how can it –… Read more »
What I could imagine happening is some kind of equity-debt swap, where 50% of the owner’s stake in a club is converted into a charge against the club. That debt may either be amortised over a fixed number of years or perhaps paid off as a fixed percentage of revenue. There may be other options as well, but that’s the first one that comes to mind.
Well, adding a whopping £1 billion to Arsenal’s already large and increasing debt (we’re having to find £120 million in a Govt. Covid loan repayment next month and a further £50 million was apparently added to cover the Partey transfer fee) is quite an ask. How that would effect the club’s ability to raise further funds for transfers in the future is anyone’s guess frankly. This all assumes that KSE would go along with it from the outset, of course. If they don’t, I foresee litigation dragging on, and on … .
What we’re talking about is effectively the government seizing private property & forcing the owners to sell to new owners.
Set aside the mechanics of whether it’s debt or equity – how do you compensate the existing owners as it seems almost unfathomable that any existing PL owner would still want to remain so under those terms.
Yes, that’s the crux of the matter. A valuable asset belongs to “A” (who doesn’t want to sell it). The Govt. comes along and, in this scenario, forces “A” to give up control of said asset to “B”. But “B” doesn’t have the money – so who pays (particularly if “A” wants cash – and probably for 100% of the asset rather than 51%, and not an equity exchange etc.)? It just doesn’t work, does it.
And this opens the door for the lefty nutters in the country to promote nationalisation. Which worked so well the first time round.
It’s not totally unprecedented, we have Compulsory Purchase in the UK (and Eminent Domain in the US) but the law would require modification, perhaps even the legislative bomb Boris was talking about. And it wouldn’t be unprecedented for a government to intervene in football in this way, Spain forced all but 4 Spanish clubs to float on the stock exchange in 1992.
That type of stuff typically occurs either with forced land sales for public projects or in industries of national security importance (extremely rare). This literally is just the forced sale bc the government deems one owner as arbitrarily bad and another as good.
It would be a forced sell because government felt football clubs are public institutions that are better off if fans had a controlling stake. Now, I’m not saying I necessarily believe that would be case btw, or that this legislation is even likely, I don’t know about that. But the point is that “seizing private property” or other government interventions in football are not completely unthinkable. Arguably the Spanish example is a better illustration of that.
It is debt but it would be serviceable, especially in the latter case which would work more like a student loan than a typical one. It would also have the advantage that, with Kronke still owning half the shares, it would very much be in his interest to make sure the debt didn’t negatively impact the team’s performance.
Why would kroenke or any other owner want to remain under those terms?
They may not, and choose to sell to another billionaire or float the shares publicly. But as the debt would still be owed to them, it’s still in their interests for that loan’s terms to be reasonable, it would effect the value of their shares after all.
More to the point, I don’t think whether the owner stays or leaves would be priority for government if they wanted to go for legislation like this.
No it wouldn’t as it’s just the arbitrary seizure of property. People need to be very careful what they wish for as a lot of the attitudes of anyone but the current owners aren’t particularly well thought out. Look at the Spanish league.
I would suggest looking closer to home before pointing at the Spanish league, no fewer than 6 English clubs tried to break away and join the ESL. Clearly, our current ownership rules haven’t been that well thought out either. I’d also be careful about telling people to be careful what they wish for, there’s been an awful lot of that on here lately and it may come across as slightly patronising. Not saying that you’re saying that of me of course, I haven’t actually stated what form of club ownership I would prefer because it would really depend on the… Read more »
Governments have the ability to change the rules whenever they see fit but that also comes with consequences as that type of reach typically expands to other sectors etc. I would add in this case a lot of the pushback is against “foreign owners”. If the government steps in and forces City, Chelsea etc into minority ownership positions you likely will see those owners exit & the cash along with it. That would mean a more equal PL but the consequence is likely less interest & money in the league as a whole. Even the smallest PL clubs are among… Read more »
I actually think the Chelsea and City owners may be the least likely to leave, they aren’t profit motivated and by being the largest individual shareholders, are in the best position to become chairmen or part of the board. I do wonder about whether or not fan ownership would make the league more competitive, and whether it would hinder English teams in Europe if UEFA continues unreformed. I also wonder about the issues the Bundasliga have had with competitiveness, and wouldn’t want to replicate that here. It has been argued that foreign investment has been good for the premier league… Read more »
Where FSG has succeeded while Kroenke has failed has primarily been via who they hired. FSG was absolutely ruthless with Rodgers & also modernized the club so that transfers ultimately are driven by a sporting director. Compare that to Kroenke who allowed Wenger to run everything leading to disasterous results in terms of squad & contract management. Our refusal to sell players meant that getting buys right was absolutely critical.
This better have teeth.
My gut feeling, however, is that it won’t.
At least it hasn’t got a fucking toupee
All Henry’s talk of DNA just reminded me of the bs that Barcelona used to throw at us. This whole talk just does not come off as being serious – we have been unhappy with the teams performance and this whole super league nonsense certainly did not help matters, but can we all just take a step back, reduce the emotion and ask ourselves what exactly will Ek and co bring. Last I checked there was no special Arsenal dna serum that will turn us into premier league winners. What we need is competent leadership (manager, ceo, recruiting)… Also an… Read more »
“The Premier League recognises the strength of feeling and the right of fans to know what is happening. “We are committed to maintaining close dialogue with supporters and their representatives….”. I don’t think I’ve ever heard such self-serving bollicks. What has the PL ever done in terms of close dialogue with supporters? What, like selling fans down the river by signing deals with Sky which has full control over scheduling, resulting in Monday nights up at Newcastle from where it is impossible to get a train back post match? These people make me sick. They are doing this so their… Read more »
I would jump the Kroenke and Ek stuff a little bit and point to some other things about AFC. Seems like AFC never managed to support itself through selling players. And I mean a good, solid, serious selling. The club is also a giant global corporation (like it or not). We are just buying (I’m not assessing good or bad transfers) and barely know how to sell, a thing which only pinpoints at other rudimentary segments of our club. If you want to be able to sell a player and make some money from it, you cant keep him for… Read more »
Apologies for the public rant that will be seen by very few but what a world we live in when UEFA is the “good guy”! Also, this Ek nonsense is a joke. If you want a billionaire owner, pick someone with oil. Spotify’s business plan is not novel and they will likely be replaced or bought by someone bigger within 10 years. I just watched the City CL semi and we are miles from them. We don’t need a new owner, we need money and patience. Real patience. Years of it. I’m tired of these fickle fans. Also those fans… Read more »