I know it’s been a while since I’ve done a piece here, and today I bring you part thoughts and part discussion that lead me to, well, finally accepting the Kroenke regime at our club.
Anyone who knows me, knows I’m a multi sports fan. I’ve always supported the Detroit Redwings and Houston Rockets in America. Both of which conveniently wear red and white which keeps my mental sporting colours/OCD thing I have right on the spot.
What does this have to do with Kroenke? Well, because of my knowledge of American sports and yes, I also was a childhood wrestling fan, I know all about the horrible misdeeds of Mr. Stan Kroenke – most of which I’ve already blogged about. But, in review, here is just a brief recap.
- He double booked his Denver Nuggets (and their arena) with a WWE event a year in advance with the assumption his team wouldn’t make the playoffs the following season.
- The angry Colorado Avalanche and St. Louis Rams fans who have both said on many occasions that Kroenke’s plan ( which happened time and again) is to sell his best players, replace them with younger upcoming stars that have quality sell on prices, and as such have kept his teams in perpetual mediocrity for years
- And we all know about his decision to move the Rams to Los Angeles next season. Not something I think we have to worry about with Arsenal mind you.
So now here it comes, me finally accepting how things are with the American billionaire at Arsenal.
While at first things were going exactly to how Stan had done things with his American teams, with the sale of Nasri against the want of Wenger which almost forced him to quit (if rumours are to be believed), and Van Persie (who left of his own stupid choice), the incoming replacement who was bought before RVP left was the younger Giroud – and not someone at the Dutch traitor’s level at the time. It all seemed to be going bad.
I never thought Kroenke would sanction a move for 42 million pounds of German awesomeness in the form of Mesut Özil. Or follow it up the next season with a move for Alexis Sánchez. But then it came to me, Arsenal have something arguably many teams in all world sports don’t have: self-sufficiency and stability.
How many other sporting organisations in the world are in the green financially? As for the other teams that are stable management wise, I can only think of the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA, who have also had Greg Popovic at the helm for almost 20 years and after a while, you can see how it’s working.
At some point, Kroenke sat down with Wenger and found out he had an extremely intelligent man under him who had a degree in economics. Kroenke also could see that he wouldn’t necessarily have to be going in to his pockets as often as he does with other sides. Indeed, my only gripe in recent times was his company taking 3 million pounds for fees the other season. The truth still hurts, but Kroenke could see he would be lining his pockets more with Arsenal than he would be with other teams under the KSE (Kroenke Sports Enterprise) banner.
While I don’t agree with how he does things, the truth is, he hasn’t ruined us and he won’t. We don’t need him as much as he needs us to have more assets when his Rams do move to Los Angeles, and the new stadium that likely comes with that will cause some financial issues for us somehow, as I assume he will take a loan out against the club to pay for their stadium. But to his credit, every time I’ve been sure this was the moment he was going to screw us up, things have been as quiet as he is in an Arsenal AGM.
While I’ve accepted the way things are, it’s not like me or anyone else can change them, I still would rather he wasn’t at the club, but the alternatives are probably more dangerous than having the greedy American anyway.
There’s the Nigerian billionaire Arsenal fan who is rumoured to spend money faster than he earns it (how is that possible for a billionaire)? Could we go with Usmanov who while things seem ok if he came in and spread his billions of rubles around, something just doesn’t seem right with the Russian. Then what do we have, fans owning the club? As much as the idea is good, let’s be honest with ourselves – Arsenal fans, if Twitter is anything to go by, are the most mental fans around. Sign him, sack him, buy him, my gosh. I’m no better by the way.
So that leaves us with Stan the man. It seems he just stays out of the club’s affairs and let’s Arsène and the rest run the show as long as he gets to take a nice little bag of money home here and there. Not a bad little earner for Kroenke, huh?
So while I’m bitter, and this is how things are, and I’ve been in the Kroenke out camp since day one, secretly, I’m kind of ok with him here. As other options don’t seem as stable as we are as a club.
So for now Mr. Kroenke, you’re doing alright by not doing anything, let’s just hope you keep it up.
By Jake Arsenal (@JakeArsenal1)
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