Sorry state of affairs this.
Not worth debating it.
Vote with your feet is you feel the need I think.
Stan, nor Usmanov are the answer.
But it all depends on where you set your sights.
My ethics and morals tell me that I'd rather go watch us in Division 3 than watch this disgusting show of greed and politics. Trophies don't matter at the moment. What matters is our club.
It's better to burn out, than to fade away.
first and foremost it is clear that stan is here for the money. how he makes his money is the interesting part; personally, i think he was sold a vision by the board that he can buy the club and keep mr wenger in charge, and as long as the equilibrium is in place, he will continue to make profit through champions league qualification. he was probably told he doesn't have to invest large amounts of money into the club because we can always hide behind the excuse that city, chelsea etc are big spending clubs and we cant compete against them. as a result, champions league qualification is a 'successful' season and as long as arsene is here, it will probably happen. kroenke will buck out when he feels its the right time to do so, most probably when the new sponsorships have been negotiated in 2014/2015 and wengers contract expires; lets face it, no other manager can do what wenger has done (make profits on a tiny budget), so when wenger leaves and sponsorships have been renegotiated, the latter will cause the value of the club to increase and at that point kroenke can sell and make his millions.
kroenke has done nothing to suggest he will move away from our existing model and this is why the board hardly make funds available for reinvestment. when they do its usually after our marquee players have been sold, which frees up some money to be spent; we want to follow the self-sustaining model and kroenke certainly doesn't want to risk any of his wealth in the club by putting more money in.
i would have to say usmanov's statement is quite impeccable, but whether it is impeccably good is up for debate. he clearly knows exactly what the fans want; signings, trophies and general on field success. i do find what he says slightly laughable in the sense that he says he does not want to sabotage anything or destabilise our club, yet by releasing the statement he's doing exactly that. i guess he has no other choice as the board have been repressing his views for years. putting that aside, some interesting things can be taken from the statement; firstly, he seems to be an admirer of wenger and nothing suggests he will sack him if he comes in (although it also suggests that dein was part of this statement and beared a huge influence on how usmanov should declare his hand). secondly, usmanov does seem to be in it for the long term, not just pumping shed loads of money into the club for short term gain. he says he will be here for generations to come and although you have to question the integrity of that statement, its good to see someone who at least share's our view and has some sort of passion for our current turmoil at the club, something that eludes the current board.
i think the most hypocritical part comes from the fans who want nothing to do with usmanov yet at the same time forget we are in the hands of a multi-millionaire businessman already, a man who only cares about profit. whilst you could argue usmanov is no good for the club because he wants radical change, you could also argue that our current regime is even worse as it's so outdated and restricts our club ever achieving any on field success. nevertheless, it'll be interesting to see what happens and although i was completely against a billionaire taking over, the current board have undermined us and completely disregarded our thoughts to the point where i couldnt care less if a takeover were to happen. thats probably the thing that pisses me off the most; that the current board have made me feel that way when i was so opposed to an oligarch running our club.
well you can always find excuses to blame someone else for how you feel.Originally Posted by Wiltord's Winner
kroenke pitched up and what was the fan reaction? fuck off.
usmanov rolled in and what was the fan reaction? fuck off + we love you stan, you can save us.
rvp unexpectedly wants to leave - get in usmanov and change the board
us fans, hypocritical? never.
1. Buy Arsenal Football Club
2. ?????
3. Profit
fickleness is a perpetuated art within modern football, only blossomed by the large sums of money circulating the game.
Fans can take a stand against the board though if they become fed up with all the nonsense, simply don't buy match tickets/renew season tickets, eg having attendance figures of less than 30k will be a massive blow to our finances. Although that will probably destabilise the team on the field more than anything, but thats what a few people have suggested doing on TS.
I am surprised with the general level of disillusionment that permeates the Emirates Stadium on most match days, that there hasn't been an attempt to form a breakaway club....start again like the fans did with AFC Wimbledon (for me a symbol that there is still life in the game outside of corporate greed...although without knowing the ins and outs of the working of that club i admit that could prove to be a facile assessment)
I quite respect Craig Murray ,the former ambassador to Uzbekistan (where Usmanov comes from) who wrote the piece on Usmanov referred to earlier in this thread. Its scary - Usmanov sounds like scum to me and I have changed my view of him becoming actively involved in our club. Its not just the alleged rape as that was never proven ( although the witnesses went missing) but the way he acted in his country for years. Murray is a fair guy and has no reason to slag him off to such an extent (and Usmanov didnt sue him for libel apparently).
There is no point in trying to take any sort of moral high ground with this situation.
There isn't one billionaire in the world who hasn't done something dirty, illegal, wrong, disgusting to get themselves where they are today.
All we hear are stories of what usmanov did x amount of years ago in Uzbekistan, a country with an entirely different background and culture to ours. We don't know any of the facts or what the situations were that he was allegedly involved in.
So let's cut the shit shall we.
End of the day, it doesn't matter what any of us fans want, ownership will be either kronke or usmanov and at the moment the latter is the only one who is making any noise about the future of the club.
Unless Jesus himself comes down from heaven with £500 billion and buys the club, we will never have a squeaky clean owner.
Yes there is. Look no further than our Swedish hero.
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