So major goings on in the Arsenal board room yesterday. The club announced the arrival of Ivan Gazidis to both the boards of the club and Arsenal holdings, the departure as a board member of Richard Carr who will remain a director of the club, and the departure of Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith with immediate effect.
Now, the first two moves aren’t exactly unexpected. It’s normal for Gazidis to be appointed while Richard Carr is 70 years of age and, according to Chairman PHW, he will continue his work with the Academy and Youth Development department.
However, Lady Nina’s departure is significant, although it’s hard to say what’s going to happen. From what’s been said it seems it wasn’t exactly amicable. The Chairman doesn’t know what she’s going to do with her shares, saying:
We hope that she would remain a shareholder but she has not spoken to me about it lately. She is no longer in the lockdown so she is free to do what she wishes to do.
So there’s 15.8% of the club up for grabs right there. There has to have been a complete breakdown in the relationship for her to have left the club without having discussed her intentions regarding her shareholding with the Chairman or the board. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say the board are aware of her intentions and just don’t want to say anything at this moment in time. There are suggestions that Lady Nina wanted to sell her shares months ago, reluctantly entered into the lockdown agreement, and has now seen the value of her shareholding fall significantly thus causing the strained relationship.
The only board member who could realistically buy her shares is Stan Kroenke but you have to think if that was going to happen then some kind of deal would have been made before her departure. We know there was a board meeting last week, with Kroenke present. I think we now know that it probably had more to do with this situation than ensuring the manager had money to spend in January. But given the circumstances Kroenke buying them, or at least sharing the purchase with existing board members, would be the ideal scenario.
However, the spectre that looms over this whole situation is that of Alisher Usmanov. He’s been fairly quiet of late but with that much up for grabs it might reawaken the beast slumbering in his Uzbeki lair.
We know he currently has close to 25% of the club so another 15.8% would be a significant chunk. However, if a shareholder takes more than 30% they are obliged to make an offer for the rest of the shares. That offer doesn’t have to be accepted, and it wouldn’t be by the current board, but it would mean a huge change in the way the club is run.
Usamanov would have 40%+ and would be by far the majority shareholder in the club. To expect him not to use that shareholding to have a say in how things are run would be foolish. Anybody who buys 40% of any company would want to get involved.
Now, this is worst case scenario stuff, I suppose, but I’m just worried that if Lady Nina’s departure was that acrimonious then she might be reluctant to sell to other board members like Kroenke or Fiszman. We know that Usmanov has been prepared to pay over the odds for shares in the past so it wouldn’t be a stretch to think he’d do it again if he really wanted them. On the other hand Lady Nina may decide not to sell her shares at all, but I think that’s probably unlikely.
We know the relationship between Usmanov and the board has been strained, to say the least. We have been told that David Dein is no longer a part of Fat & Orange but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that wasn’t necessarily the truth. If Usmanov got 40% of Arsenal he’d have to have representation on the board. It’s unlikely he’d do it himself and the return of Dein would not surprise me one bit. If that were to happen then you’ve got a club split right down the middle at board level.
The existing board members have no relationship with him at all, Kroenke feels that he was used when Dein initially approached him trying to sell his own shares and those of Lady Nina – the move which led to his sacking by the club. I’m also told Kroenke was less than impressed when Dein subsequently sold his shares to the fat Man United fan.
So the whole thing simply adds to the sense of turmoil around the club. Things are not going well on the pitch and now at boardroom level too. I imagine the next few days are going to be very interesting until we get a clearer picture of what’s going to happen. It might get even more interesting after that. Hang on to your hats.
Away from the board room and onto the pitch and the manager says that Eduardo’s biggest hurdle will be pyschological. He returned for the reserves the other night (some highlights here) but it’s going to take some proper matches and some proper kicks for him to get his confidence back.
Cesc wants to avoid Barcelona in tomorrow’s Champions League draw. I can understand why. They’re a fantastic team playing some fantastic football at the moment. It’s funny how, after two seasons in the relative doldrums, they solved their problems by … it’s revolutionary I know … buying some better players than the ones they already had.
It’s something our manager should pay close attention to. Yesterday in a webchat thingy with the offical website he said of the current crop:
That team in 2004 was of course special, but funnily I believe that this team is not very far, and can get there as much as the team in 2004
You know I could say that it’s his way of boosting the confidence of the team but he cannot possibly think this group of players even comes close to the 2004 team which was, to my mind, one of the best football teams I’ve ever seen at any level. It had pace, power, experience, quality and the kind of mental strength that the manager goes on about ad infinitum. It was almost the perfect team, so to suggest the team we’re seeing now is not very far from that level, when it’s quite clear to all and sundry that it is miles away, makes me head hurt and makes me a bit sad.
He went on to say:
The belief I have in this team is not shared by the immediate people who love this club. That’s why I work very hard to convince everybody that we have the ambition, the motivation and the quality to achieve that.
He’s obviously referencing the fans and while nobody can possibly doubt how hard Arsene works or his commitment to the club, you get the sense that he’s working that hard to prove that this project with these players can work. As for the upcoming transfer window, he says:
At the moment I must sincerely say we have not seen anything special that can convince us we will be much stronger, so I cannot say that something will happen… but you never know. Sometimes a signing can give an extra belief to the squad, and it can help even if on the pitch it’s not that convincing. We don’t reject it, but we cannot say for certain it will be done.
Again you hope that he’s talking so as not to dent the brittle confidence of his young charges but there comes a point when you have to take a different approach. Wenger’s belief in young players will not win us matches or trophies. He is not some kind of Jedi. Wenger buying some better players to augment the squad will do a lot more for us. I know we can sit here and say things like ‘Oh what Wenger says in public is no reflection of what he’ll do in the transfer market’ but increasingly that’s not true.
He spent all of August saying he probably wouldn’t buy anyone and in the end we didn’t, bar Sylvester, a purchase I likened yesterday to grabbing something off the shelves as the shops are closing on Christmas Eve.
If he honestly can’t look at other clubs and see anyone who wouldn’t seriously improve this squad then I’m very, very worried indeed. Gunnerblog has more from the webchat.
Right so, that’s about that. More, including a Mugsmashing Arsecast, tomorrow.
