Football clubs may have began as a collective of the local community, but these days it feels that every club has a foreign sugar daddy of some kind.
Roman Abramovich kicked it all off when he took over at Chelsea, with Manchester City’s Abu Dhabi United Group soon upping the ante. The trend has continued with Stan Kroenke taking a majority stake with Arsenal, while even underdogs Leicester have Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha and the King Power Group funding them.
As the influx of foreign owners continues, fans are justifiably worried about losing the sense of community that made their club so special in the first place as the search for financial success trumps the search for trophies on the field.
One club where this appears to happening more so than any other is Arsenal, where Arsene Wenger has been mocked over the last decade for his unwillingness to spend big on key areas of need, despite claiming his team are always one or two players away from challenging for a league title.
Speaking at the Sloan Sports Conference in Boston, “Silent” Stan Kroenke hinted that this trend would continue for the Gunners under his leadership, saying: “For me, being an individual owner, I have to have some sort of reality involved.
“If you want to win championships then you would never get involved. I think the best owners in sports are the guys that sort of watch both sides a bit.
“If you don’t have a good business then you can’t really afford to go out and get the best players unless you just want to rely on other sources of income.”
Kronke owns a number of sporting “franchises” in the US, including the Rams – an NFL side who Kroenke recently moved from St Louis, Missouri to Los Angeles, California in search of a richer fanbase.
Arsenal fans have felt harshly treated by the club’s ownership for some time now, particularly by Kroenke’s unwillingness to meet with fan groups or speak publicly – and these comments will not do the American’s reputation any good.
