Last april, Dein tried to initiate a take over from american billionaire Stan Kroenke behind the back of other board members. its obvious that his intention had to do with his own personal benefits. ye laa.. kalau nak propose take over pun, kenapa tak declare plans dari awal dgn semua ye tak. other board members have the right to know from the start. this resulted with Dein leaving the club over the reports of "irreconcilable differences" between him n the rest of the board members.
ARSENAL SHAREHOLDERS as of April '07:
Board members:
Danny Fiszman - 24%
Lady Bracewell-Smith - 15.8%
Richard Carr - 4.35%
Peter Hill-Wood - 0.8%
Others:
David Dein - 14.5%
Stan Kroenke - 11.26%
Small investors - 18.03%
With Dein leaving there is a possibility that of him selling his share to Kroenke, enabling Kroenke to rack up 25.7% shares. But still a takeover is not at stake as majority shareholders wont bow down to the plan. Its a good thing that the club's tradition, history, achievements and fans are still their top priorities.
Stan Kroenke
Knowing this, Dein is now back with another plan... and with another billionaire... This time a russion investor name Alisher Usmanov. Last month, he sold his 14.5% shares in the club to Red & White, a company co-owned by Usmanov & his partner Farhad Moshiri. Red & White is the largest shareholder in the club outside of members of the board of directors, and Dein was later appointed as the co's chairman.
Usmanov, russion billionaire gangster who have been linked with russion mafia
Dein is now taking a different approach, by trying to win the fans (yuck). He always state his importance to the club as he have special connection with wenger, henry and so on. Well, no one can take away what Dein did for us in the 20 years he was at the club. We cant deny the fact that he's the one that brought wenger in, changed the way business worked in football and took Arsenal to a whole new level. he does deserve credits for that. But once love for the club got tangled up with personal interest, thats where things go wrong.
Dein & Wenger
By his own words, we could see clearly whether Dein has been giving honest opinions, or not. Before Wenger decided to sign a new contract, he stated that Dein's departure will not affect his commitment to the club. Therefore he will sit down and discuss on his new contract soon. But later on, why is Dein saying he had a chat with Wenger and convinced him to sign? Is Dein trying to show the fans that he played a major role in persuading wenger to stay?? boleh blahhh...
Another thing is that Dein claims that Arsenal need to seek foreign investment to not fall behind other clubs in the premiership. His arguments is that new investment will give Wenger more money to spend in the transfer market and the ability to bring the biggest names to the club. Itu yg pelik tu, dia ni betul2 ke kenal wenger mcm mana!?!? saje je lah dia ni. busuk punya worang... I know he manage to find out what the fans yearn so much, which is bringing more big names to the club. But knowing wenger, that is very very unlikely to happen. And our performance in the premiership upstart proved all that, we already have great players that are capable to challenge the title this season. Also a quicknote: we are the only club in EPL who made profits out of transfer dealings. So, nampak tak ape yg Dein trying to do? Puh-lease la.. Arsenal fans are too smart to fall for that.
With Dein pursuing a talk with the boardmembers on Usmanov's behalf (possibility on take over proposals), it is good to hear today the words from our chairman, Peter HIll Wood (PHW) claiming that the major shareholders have no intention of selling and wouldn't welcome an offer.
Peter Hill Wood
For me, it is quite an interesting piece to see how this whole 'Dein saga' will turn out. I hope that in the end, the club will continue to resist any forms of takeover from anyone.. be it by sultan Brunei, tony fernandez + richard branson, or even ananda krishnan.
No comments:
Post a Comment