The news emerged this week that Stan Kroenke has taken a payment of £3million from Arsenal through his company Kroenke Sports Enterprises LLC and this has led to a huge backlash from Arsenal fans.
The money is a payment for ‘Strategic and advisory services’ in relation to the Broadband department at the club who are responsible for selling content on a weekly basis. But it is the equivalent to the money raised from the 3% ticket price rise that Arsenal fans have had to fork out for this season and this is what has angered fans the most.
The basic gist is that he wanted to take a payment without the other shareholders receiving any money and thought Arsenal fans would fall for the ‘payment for services’ excuse.
Why should our hard earned cash go right into the pockets of the person we distrust the most at the club right now. Kroenke has had zero involvement with the fans since he took over the club as a main shareholder in 2008 despite insisting he has met with fan groups he has never made the effort and is questioned about this every year in the AGM.
He has the nickname ‘Silent Stan’ for a reason,he earned that name…unlike the £3mil just taken from the club. The general consensus gathered from research about Kroenke before this happened was the majority of fans don’t trust or like him, his future plans or visions of the club have never been outlined for the fans.
In the BSM yearly survey a whopping 76.8% of fans said they don’t think that Kroenke’s majority ownership is beneficial for Arsenal and alarmingly 87.7% thought the board were completely out of touch with the fans and 93% believed that new faces were needed on the board.
That tells you exactly what a lot of Arsenal fans really feel. The board are playing a dangerous game here, it’s one thing to have your fans divided on whether they want Wenger at the club any more but when majority of the fans start to unite against the board, that is when trouble will start. There have already been many protests regarding ticket prices and I think more will follow on after this little bit of news. How bad are they willing to let it get before they realise that changes need to be made? They need to at least address the fans and answer some questions.
We pay the highest ticket prices in Premier League football and we haven’t won the league in ten years now.We have several failed years behind us and only scraped through a final by the skin of our teeth to win the FA Cup. If we were buying the players we actually needed during the transfer windows of the past few years spending our money wisely and competing every season then we would have no right to moan about this but we aren’t and still we have to pay inflated prices for deflating football.
We have an amazing history and our board have always done us proud, we could see clearly what they had done every year to make us tick over and the fans were always appreciated on every level. Somewhere along the line that history has been tainted and that coincides with the arrival of Kroenke. This wig wearing American has changed the way the fans view the people that run the club forever, we’ve never had a majority shareholder/owner who has been so vacant and uninvolved in our entire history, nor has anyone ever disregarded the fans in this way.
The club need to come up with some answers at their next AGM or they face a lot of unhappy fans, especially the ones who spend money on tickets.
