There have been many articles on JustArsenal discussing the impact on Arsenal of Newcastle being taken over by Prince Muhammad Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, which is likely to reduce the Gunners chances of ever making the Top Four again without major investment.
Of course, we all know about the bid from Daniel Ek of Spotify to try and persuade Stan Kroenke to sell Arsenal to him, along with a consortium of investors and Arsenal legends backing him, but it remains to be seen if he has the financial clout to persuade our absent landlords to give up their cash cow.
With Man City being owned by Sheik Mansour of the United Arab Emirates, it would appear that he now has got a rival in the Premier League that can match his spending power, if not beat it, although when you start talking about multi-billionaires then they can all buy anything they want.
So if they wanted to create a playfull competition between the Middle Eastern countries, it would be reasonable to expect a Qatari takeover of a Premiership team, and just over 5 weeks ago Khalifa Bin Hamad Al Thani, the ex-Emir of Qatar tweeted a cryptic tweet…..
And yesterday, after news of Newcastle’s takeover, we saw another reference to Arsenal from the Qatari Culture Ambassador in London, Mohammed Al Kaabi, which gave us yet another clue….
Other than being a personal plaything, the Middle Eatern states are using ‘sports washing’ to help improve their images in Europe, so it is very possible that Qatar would be keen on the Premier League, especially after the uproar caused by their successful World Cup bid.
And althogh Daniel Ek has not tempted Kroenke to sell, a massive offer from Qatar Sports Investments could easily make Kroenke an offer he couldn’t refuse.
Dan Smith doesn’t think that a Middle Eastern takeover would be good for Arsenal or the Premier League, but it would certainly mean that the Gunners would be challenging for trophies in the near future….