Everyone tends to be suspicious of new owners. After all who are these people who have suddenly decided that they love your club and they’re going to take it over? Do they really have the best interests of your beloved at heart or are they merely attempting to use this extravagant purchase as some kind of over zealous phallic extension to compensate for when they were called a ‘nerd’ at school.
The truth is: you can’t know until it’s too late. New owners are like politicians: they say one thing, think another and get abuse from fans no matter what they do. But, that doesn’t always mean that they have to have a negative impact. Everyone has different ideas about how clubs should be run and, with the exception of a few ruthless businessmen, they tend to have their heart in the right place, even if they’re disgracefully under qualified.
So what does Stan Kroenke bring to Arsenal, and is he the right man to usher in a new era of success for the north London club? A lot of people won’t want Kroenke trying to interfere at all in the actual running of the club but I think it might be necessary. The current board seems to have stagnated slightly. They sound like a broken record and I don’t think they put pressure on Arsene to be more lavish in the way that David Dein did.
The best way to understand Kroenke is to look not only at what he’s been saying to the press but also how he has managed the other sports teams he owns in the States.
What he’s said?
One clue Stan recently threw to the press was his defence of the Glazer family’s running of Man Utd. The American said: “Since they took over they have won and increased revenues by a huge amount. If I was a fan of that club, I would go there and go ‘Wow!’ because how could you do it any better? We have a whole different philosophy I think in the States…but I think it’s time maybe for everybody to think a little bit….He (Glazer) took money out of the club. So What? (LA Lakers owner) Jerry Buss takes money out of his club…Did the Lakers win anything? Well, yeah. They did. How big’s their revenue? Pretty darn good.”
Hmm…what about the obsession with Wengeristic sustainability for our club? Have you only been going on about making our club profitable so you can take money out of it? I don’t think so but it is interesting to hear him say things that are in stark contrast to what he has said in the past. Kroenke announced recently that he was at Arsenal for the ‘long-term’. Whilst this might be a reassuring note for some for others including myself it denotes that he is prepared to play the long game. Something that Arsenal fans have been doing for a while.