Originally Posted by
IBK
I have a certain amount of sympathy with Dein and the rest of the board for looking at outside 'investment' initially at the time when Kroenke was brought on board. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and its easy to see the mistakes that were made now. But at the time, I think that Dein was mostly naive and too hasty. Let's remember that he originally introduced Kroenke to the club, and only later sold his shares to Usmanov when he fell out with the rest of the board. Dein clearly felt that the original intention of becoming self-sustaining was in danger of being hijacked with the increasing trend of billionaire owners. Whether his play for Usmanov was because, too late, he saw that Kroenke was not going to invest in the club via the playing side maybe a matter of record (although I haven't looked), but what is for sure is that the Kroenke/Usmanov situation has arisen as the result of a divided board - the rest of whom backed Kroenke mostly as a result of the dispute with Dein. It seems to me that in doing this, they shackled us with an owner with a business model that did not include footballing success.
What I believe in hindsight, however, is that Dein was ambitious for the club, and despite his cock up I judge him less harshly than the others who by the time push came to shove should have seen Kroenke's modus operandi, and yet have left us with the absurd situation where together our owners trump everyone but Citeh in terms of wealth, yet will not invest a penny to try to lead us to significant silverware.