EPL, Premiership, English Premier League

Stan Kroenke, the American billionaire who owns the St Louis Rams, the Colorado Rapids and the Denver Nuggetsthrough Kroenke Sports Enterprise has now been admitted to the board as a non-executive director. Kroenke currently owns 12.4% of Arsenal holdings; his appointment surely vexes Arsenal chairman Peter Hill-Wood who remarked when Kroenke first invested that Arsenal did not want “his sort”. However, since Uzbek billionaire Usmanov began raising his stake in Arsenal the club shareholders have begun to realize that he could take over the club. As a result, they moved to Kroenke who agreed to counteract any take-over bid by Usmanov by increasing his investment in Arsenal beyond 30%. While Usmanov currently owns 24.9% of Arsenal shares this is obviously an attempt to prevent any potential take-over.

“Mr Kroenke fully supports the approach the board has taken in setting the direction of the club. The board believes Mr Kroenke’s experience in sports team commercial management, sports marketing, media and new media rights as well as real estate development will be of great value.”

Kroenke responded by saying, “It is a real honour to be invited to join the board of Arsenal given their pre-eminent reputation and position in football worldwide. I hope my background in sports management will be an asset to Arsenal in their commercial dealings going forward.”

Even Hill-Wood chipped in: “We are delighted to welcome Stan to the board of Arsenal. He brings with him a wealth of experience through his direct involvement in sports clubs in the US and we expect to benefit from his commercial insights and knowledge.”

As Kroenke joined the board Arsenal announced a pre-tax profit of €36.7 million as of May 2008 though Arsenal’s overall dept of €318.1 million still looms in the background. Arsenal’s move to the Emirates Stadium has given them significantly increased profits with match day revenues encompassing 45% of all profits at €94.6 million. The new stadium holds an audience of 60,000; Hill-Wood described how the new stadium has improved their position:

“This club is ambitious for success and I believe that the strong financial position which the group has established, as confirmed by the results for the year, provides the best possible platform from which to deliver that success for the long term. We are committed to operating the club as a business which is financially self-sustaining and over the last two seasons Emirates Stadium has taken our football revenues to a new level. During the year we have improved and extended the contract terms of a large number of first team players and, of course, of Arsene Wenger himself. As a result, for the first time, the Group’s wage bill has exceeded nine figures at £101.3 million.”

This situation does raise multiple serious questions:

1). What affect are foreign billionaire investors going to have on the EPL in the future?
Are they going to bring more foreign players to the EPL? Will the EPL improve? Will the EPL continue to serve as a method of developing English National players? Will it broaden the market for the EPL to areas where investors are from?

2). Is it better to have a club owned by one investor, or multiple, and should more clubs be owned fractionally?
If an entire club is owned by one person they have complete control over the club, its managers and player transfers. Is this beneficial or would it be better to have a balance of power between multiple investors?