From Pat Gillett :
Hi Myles,
I’m writing in response to the post “When did an American-owned European sports brand do well? ”
Please stop using national pejoratives to denigrate figures like Wenger and Kroenke.
It comes across as lazy and Little Engerland. You might argue that the terms are not especially insulting, but the context usually makes your tone clear.
Specifically on the “Evil Stan Corporate Disney Americanisation” theme, how about stopping to consider who has really made money out of Arsenal?
Fiszmann, Bracewell-Smith and David Dein.
Just like the Shepherds of Newcastle and the Moores of Liverpool, these guys saw their fine work administering the club rewarded by serious personal profit – David Dein made nearly 300 times his initial stake when he sold his shares! 30,000%!
These “stewards’ did some great things for the club, but don’t kid yourself about their motives. I didn’t see any of them put aside a few percent of their sale proceeds to pay down the stadium debt.
So now we have an American owner who paid nearly £500m for two thirds of the club and who is pretty focussed on making a return on that money. So far in seven years Kroenke has made forty odd percent in capital appreciation to go along with the 0.5% he gets via his “consulting fee” – not bad, sure, but probably less than he’d have made in an index tracking fund and not in the same league as his esteemed predecessors.
It’s not pretty or edifying and frankly Kroenke seems to be a bit of a dick.
But the methods reflect the size of the football business now – we’re past that era where dilettante owners with houses worth more than their stake could act like fans and respect traditions and eventually be considered wise, brilliant statesmen largely for riding a wave which was beyond their control. Now we have football clubs worth a billion quid with debts and wage bills and commercial revenues in the hundreds of millions, and the guys who run them are hard-nosed businessmen for whom trophies are just revenue opportunities to be pursued when the value looks right.
But these guys are also just trying to sustain their business in a way which justifies the price of their entry ticket.
If you want to blame someone for the way football is run now, I’d look at the past owners before attacking the current ones.
They are the ones who saw the easy money and took it.
Myles says:
Thanks for making so many good points.
When Danny was on his deathbed, Lady Nina was told she had to sell to Stan.When Danny kicked David out, Dein sold his shares to a man he’d met twice. I know quite a bit about the terms of the Kroenke deal that will never be public domain.
But deals and cash are not super-interesting to me.
Topical blogs, often written quickly and unedited, are riddled with cliches & oversimplifications and lazy phrases. ANR included.
Having said that, Arsene FC is too Phrench.
And Kroenke is very American in a Walmart way. He got control of Arsenal because no British billionaire would touch football with a barge-pole.
Apart from Mike Ashley , who owns the stuttering Newcastle. I know a few things about Mike too.