Comments on: CORRUPTION FILES 3: WHU close to Iceland fraud?

By: Marc

Marc — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 22:36:12 +0000

Walter – The apartment idea was mine.

By: walter

walter — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:21:54 +0000

Well that’s a lot of money I guess

By: Adam Smith

Adam Smith — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:41:22 +0000

walter she has 15.9% of the shares.

By: walter

walter — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:30:26 +0000

LRV, I think you got an excellent idea. Wasn’t it also you who came up with the idea that Usmanov if he wanted to put 100 million in Arsenal he just had to buy the appartments ?

If an independent supporters association would buy the shares they would be certain that no Usmanov-type would gain a majority.
But then again is there a supporters association that has such an amount of money ? I’ve heard once that one share is worth over 7.000 pound and I dont know how many shares she has but it is a lot of money, I think, she has in hands.
Mmmmm I’ve got an idea, tonight is the draw from Euromillions and the jackpot is 100 million euro’s…(obscene amount of money…. ) if I win tonight I will ask the lady if she wants to sell them to me.

By: Marc

Marc — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:08:07 +0000

At the heart of your story Tony is one question. Why would someone want to own a football club? This is a difficult one to answer but there are a few obvious answers i) People like Jack Walker, local boy made good who buys the club he grew up supporting and pumps money in. ii) People like Abramovich who apparently got the football bug and decided he wanted a club to play with and went out in search of one to buy. iii) Investors who want to make money. iv) The Arabs, to be honest I have no idea of the motivation of the people who have bought Man City.

The major fault with the investor model is that is is incredibly difficult to make a football club successful and profitable. Arsenal are, ManU were but once they have to start repaying debt from the leveraged buyout they are in trouble and I am yet to see any documentation of the Glazers getting any serious money out of the club. If that turns out to be the case why bother?

Until we have a Fit and Proper persons check on ownership that works nothing will change. The new PL rules coming in won’t do a thing.

By: LRV

LRV — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:41:26 +0000

Walter: Lady Bracewell-Smith was ‘kicked’ out of the Boardroom. They have a lot of boardroom drama going on. There has been a ‘Will-she, Won’t-she’ drama going on about the sale of her shares. One thing is for sure, though, she will not sell to Danny Fitzman or any of the other male board members who pushed her out. So, as an alternative, sell to supporters. What do you think?

By: walter

walter — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:57:36 +0000

Looking from far away I do not now any of the members of the board but by name.
But I’ve heard that this Lady Bracewell-Smith and her family have a very long Arsenal tradition, so I guess that maybe even with her disagreament on whatever she and the board have, she still does care about the Arsenal.
Selling shares to Usmanov is not what I would call caring for the Arsenal at the long term and that is what she should do.
But would she listen to me ?
She could sell to Usmanov, she could sell to Kroenke but she also just could hold her shares I guess and stay where she is ??

This shares-thing is for an outsider difficult to follow. I can see how the wind blows in the emirates and see the grass been taken care of but the boardroom problems are out of reach.
Maybe an extra webcam in the boardroom would be a good idea.

By: LRV

LRV — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:40:29 +0000

Tony’s article up there points out the very rason why we must hope and pray that the “I’ll-get=it-at-all-cost” Usmanov does not lay his grotty hands on our club. I sincere also hope that the board will take immediate steps to mend fences with all enstranged Directors, most especially, Lady Bracewell-Smith so that she does not feel obliged to sell to Usmanov or any of his cohorts.

Sorry Tony, couldn’t the AISA & other supporter associations convince Lady Bracewell-Smith to sell to Supporters associations rather than Usmanov?

By: walter

walter — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 08:55:21 +0000

We can only hope that the club is never bought by such sugar daddies who at the end of the day are nothing but gangsters in a nice suit.
Of course who ever owns the Arsenal, we will support the Arsenal further but I really would sleep bad if we were in the situation like WHU.

By: heffy

heffy — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 08:08:10 +0000

hmm. interesting about buying the “road-to-nowhere” club, though ecclestone and briatore’s involvement in qpr comes to mind on that matter. otherwise, not surprised about the fishiness of the whole thing especially considering kia-the-suspicious seems to be rather close to whu.

for arsenal, it really remains to be seen. i’m tired of the powerplay in the boardroom and how they’ve treated david dein and lady bracewell-smith. they are old-fashioned gentlemen no doubt, right down to the sexism in the boardroom. and with usmanov and stanley lurking around, their shadows loom over our future. it does look rather grey and uncertain to me.