Arsenal Ownership

The latest takeover news has split fans almost as much as the recent performances. Is Stan Kroenke a good potential owner for Arsenal? Is he better than Alisher “Jabba” Usmanov? Do we want the club taken over at all? What does it actually mean if the club is taken over? How will it affect the club? Will it, indeed, affect the club at all?

Lots of bloggers with much more intimate knowledge of the finances of the club than I do have blogged about it in greater depth, so I’m not planning on covering that aspect.

What I want to ask is: what difference will it actually make to us fans?

Firstly, apart from the Arsenal Supporters Trust, do any of us really have a say? Well according to Peter Hill-Wood recently, the club could (and may well) stop ‘co-operating’ with the AST anyway, if the AST get too ‘uppity’ (my word, not his, but that’s what he meant). Complain too much and we’ll cut you off is essentially what he said. So in what sense do we (the fans) have a say in the running of the club?

Should we have a say in the running of the club? There are plenty of clubs where the fans have quite literally zero say in the running of their club. In fact, it’s not their club at all – it belongs, properly, to some businessman somewhere. It has ALWAYS been that way. The idea of community owned clubs is rare, and more popular recently than in the beginning of those clubs.

I guess I’m arguing like this – the club is not our in a business sense, or a controlling sense, in any sense at all. We support the team, we love the team, but we don’t have any SAY in either the club OR the team. And why should we? We’d probably screw it up if we did.

Do I think Stan Kroenke will make a good owner? Inasmuch as any rich businessman would  make a good owner, yes. I think he’s cautious, sensible, and will retain the sensible self-sustaining financial approach that Arsenal has at the moment. That’s certainly better than Usmanov, who has loads of money in the bank (apparently), but nobody knows where the money came from and his approach is less…. reasonable than Quiet Stan’s. A simple choice between the two is no choice for me – has to be Stan. But I know some Arsenal fans who think otherwise. They think that Usmanov has loads of money in the bank and will spend spend spend, and that is a good thing. Not for me it isn’t. It’s not financial prudent, and that’s not for me.

On balance we have someone who is sensible and prudent financially, and who (apparently supports the current board and manager), and on the other hand, what the hell does it have to do with us? We who have no say anyway.

I’m going to keep my nose out of it. Aside from a preference for financial prudence, there’s really nothing I can influence – nothing I have any real say in. So I’ll keep my preference, keep my council and keep my peace. I can only suggest that other Arsenal fans do the same.