Arsenal’s smallest shareholder, Phil Wall, has explained why he believes the Gunners’ statement regarding Arsene Wenger’s new two-year deal is meaningless.
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Phil Wall, who is Arsenal’s smallest shareholder and therefore has just as much right to be on the board as the likes of Lord Harris and Sir Chips Keswick, believes that one of Arsenal’s main problems is Stan Kroenke.
Kroenke has made his lack of interest in the way the club’s actually run very clear. He sees the club as a cash cow, rather than a project. As long as it’s making him money, he’ll stay.
And therein, claims Wall, lies the problem.
“Statements from Arsenal following Arsene’s reappointment are full of positive but ultimately meaningless phrases about desire, ambition and commitment, but Kroenke has shown his true hand often enough: he’s in it for cash, not glory,” wrote Wall for the Evening Standard.
“I don’t want ‘financial doping’, but as long as the money rolls in Kroenke will resist change: the top half of the Premier League will do — and on Arsenal’s budget most managers would find it hard to fail at that.
“Ultimately, the boardroom problem is that Kroenke is in sole charge but he isn’t a fan and has no interest in fans; he’s an investor interested in dollars.”
While Wenger’s new contract announcement has left Gooners once again split, there are very few who believe that Kroenke is the right man to be the club’s owner.
However, with the alternative, Alisher Usmanov, hardly whiter than white, it’s hard to know what other options there are.