Everything and Nothing

First sign of tangible reportable news has surfaced this week or so, so I’ll round it up for ya.

Kroenke on the Board - On the business side of things recently we have a report in the Telegraph about PHW discussing the timing of offering Kroenke a directorship offer and a seat on the board at Ashburton.

Looking at the reality of the situation facing the board and how they have approached it - from an outsiders perspective, its more of a safe harbour than a strategic alliance. Kroenke knows it, expected it and is going to play it.

I have no ill feeling for Kroenke, but then I’ve never had a beer with him.

A Wiley old boy is Stan. He’s a rich fella too. He invests. Not to say that a take-over is not an investment. He has apparently ruled that out. But his shares and a friendly smile will be welcome on the board. Even to hear PHW talk of him taking a seat is a VAST sea-change from the amazing stiff upper lip - gout jowled comments of a while back “We don’t need his money and we don’t need his sort!”. There is a fanciful dream in the Ashburton boardroom. Honour above all. Well, that works well in Harry Potter books - but doesn’t quite cut the mustard at the pointy end of the football industry. Business is business. And business men need to do business to stay in business. Is Kroenke the lesser of two evils ? Certainly. Does appointing him to the board have advantages for us apart from having the bulk controlling share of Arsenal Holdings in-house ? Yes. His sporting empire in the states gives us a valuable foot hold in America as Footballs stock is starting to rise there. But he’s also a canny guy. His original involvement and agreement was to market our brand over there (the tie-up with the Rapids was more “fluff on the fluffer” on that deal). Now I was in the states a couple of months back, found a “Dickies” store and proceeded to look for the arsenal gear. Not a fucking sausage. Nothing. I actually think the only football shirts there were the LA Galaxy Beckham ones. Now this guy apparent dumped a few million on the counter in order to get a foot in the door with us via Dein under the guise of a marketing deal. After all that bruhaha - no Arsenal merchandise was accrued by that part of his business in America. A stand off perhaps ? Anyway - end of the day, he could limit the amount of ManUre shirts sold out there ! Other news... Arsenal Ladies departures - Anita Asante, Lianne Sanderson and Mary Phillip have all left the club. Needless to say, thats a fucking big slice of the team that can’t spell the word defeat. How that effects the team ? Good question, well presented. Will wait for word from Vick Akers (could be waiting a while, Ladies football gets next to no coverage - however, this story might attract some interest). News of the World punted a speculative bubble and squeak article on AW claiming we are a selling club. I’ve mentioned before that I feel we could start to be looked at as some sort of waiting room feeder club to other big clubs; but there is something agenda driven about this report and I reckon (cue black helicopters and the Conspiriacy Theory rabble rousers) its indirectly traceable back to a certain Rouge en Blanc set-up. The report throws some figures around - notable those from earlier this year when the Deloitte football report was published. The financial annual reporting from the clubs came out “after” that report I do believe that with some amateur mathematics you will find that changed the order around a bit. Arseblogger observantly points out that it has no direct quotes or references to any particular interview / conversation or actual verifiable origin. They have ben continually reporting we need a fat/rich bastard to step in and launder/inject some much needed/nice to have rubbles/cash into the club. Its very much in their interests to destablise the club both internally and externally. It really wouldn’t surprise be if certain cash injections were made into a certain Catalonian club, to lure Adebeyor out of Arsenal; just to add weight to this news story. If that happened, obviously AW cannot deny saying something he never said - and then the seeds of doubt are planted. You DO NOT get to finance, build, complete and move into a £400m stadium in the middle of London without having a fucking business plan. According to the thread of this story - it appears that some studious book-keeper working through the night by candle light SUDDENLY discovers that if were on a 17yr repayment mortgage from Bradford and Bingley our annual costs would be around £24m pa (so £2m a month) and sent Mr Wenger a memo saying if we flog our “best “ player (funnily enough - Barcelona were rumoured to have been preparing a £24m bid a few weeks ago...) we would be safe for another year. Long story short, to get financing like that you would have a detailed business plan showing projected company turnover, assets, ability to repay the debt etc. Don’t forget that the loan was refinanced only about a year ago. Rest assured, our long term financial future is sound. Then again - its in the papers so it MUST be true. Bis Später Gooners ! [ 7th July - more at www.dubaibury.com ]