Josh Kroenke has confirmed that his family has no plans to sell Arsenal, despite calls from some fans for them to leave their club.
The son of Arsenal’s majority shareholder, Stan Kroenke was answering questions from the club’s fans after the fall out from their involvement in the botched European Super League.
He was asked about their plans to invest in the team and if they did not when would they be selling up.
He reiterated that they would invest to make Mikel Arteta’s squad stronger, but he insisted that they have no plans to sell up.
FK : Self sustainability is not working, how will you be investing? And if not, when will you be selling AFC?
JK: we have big plans to invest, we have plans, we want to be great again, but a long term model does not support long term high investment. No intention of selling
— REDaction Gooners (@REDactionAFC) April 22, 2021
This will come as a huge disappointment to most Arsenal fans who see this moment as the perfect time to force the Americans out of the club.
Their protest has been motivated by the European Super League, but they have long been looking to see the back of the Americans before now.
Kroenke if I remember right couple of days ago you said you wouldn’t never pull out of ESL, so there is hope for us
THIS COULD WELL BE THE FIRST AND ONLY STATEMENT EVER FROM THE KROENKE MONSTERS THAT IS TRUE . They will never choose to sell but will need to be forced to.
I totally agree with you Jon. They must be forced to sell by not attending games when fans return to Emirates, by not buying merchandisers and stuff. I believe it will force their hands to sell. We can achieve this with the help of our supporters in London and it’s environs.
But how can you force him to sell, Jon.
I see only two ways – either football/govt legislation forcing at least 51% of shares to be held by fans, or through a substantial loss in club value or income. I don’t think the drop in value will force him out unless its a long term income drop decreasing that value. Otherwise he will sit it out until value goes up again – its not like he is short of cash. Widespread fan disobediance ie not spending money WOULD have an effect but it would need to be worldwide and that wont happen.
For me the best route would be legislation as it wouldnt hurt us fans.
I agree. Football clubs are not like some personal corner shop that someone should own. If you give someone so much power, 100% ownership of a football club is wrong. Footbal clubs are fan built, their foundations are predicated on grassroot fan involvement.
But the moment you allow 100% owners of a whole football club to an individual with no accountability, then it makes us fans as hopeless and helpless to have much influence. We just have to dance to whatever tune the owner expects us to dance to.
Going to take something special to get rid of that lot! Shameful how he was allowed to buy into the club with no intention to invest in the squad.
Followed the meeting live.
I have posted a few bits and pieces on another thread, so will not bother gain.
Nothing said you wouldn’t expect to hear.
No intention of selling etc.
Re’ ESL ;
“We asked ourselves, what is worse : ESL, or ESL without Arsenal? Also asked ourselves what do the fans want? The global fan wants AFC v Barca as often as possible. English fans want to see more big matches, but you still want your cold nights in Stoke. We got it wrong”
No we don’t want Arsenal v Barca every 5 minutes – sod the “global fan”.
And STOKE AREN’T IN OUR LEAGUE IN CASE YOU HADN’T NOTICED
Cold nights in stoke 😂 they don’t even know who we play 😂
Come on. It’s an oft used expression to describe games as such and we could of course play them in the cup so don’t be so pedantic.
Yeah to people who know about football but let’s be honest Declan american football and lacrosse is they’re expertise, those 2 know as much about football or soccer as they call it as i do about cricket – which is absolutely nothing.
Would usually agreed Declan.
But I strongly suspect in this case J K simply didn’t have a clue.
And in his position to “generalise” was the worst thing he could have done anyway.
Also the lack of communication from him and “dad”, has been down to Covid ???
Billionaires don’t use technology then !
Come on, we are in the hands of money men.
Who we got tonight – Tranmere ?
Banners, flags,aeroplanes and chanting could well make life uncomfortable for Kronk before and after games. The Arsenal supporters trust can keep applying pressure. He can constantly be sent the message he is not wanted. We must let him know day after day.
Reggie, they have hides as thick as a rhinoceros; their most sensitive part is to hurt their pockets.
they would never suggest otherwise as it would negatively impact what someone might be willing to pay…nothing props-up the value of a team more than it’s current owner professing that they have no interest whatsoever in selling…hopefully this eventually burns him and he’s forced to sell from a position of desperation, not strength, so that our future owner(s) might invest more into the team with the money they saved
two things need to be contemplated, as a way to circumvent the present financial “crisis”…one would be to adopt a hard salary cap, based on total League revenues, which could include a scaled-system for wages to discourage ridiculous contracts for the first 4-5 years of their professional careers…it’s these mega-deals that have considerably distorted things, as they have artificially increased salaries for any player who can use logical analytics to inflate their market values based on those contracts given to functionally “unproven” players
the other key issue is that of “total” ownership by any one individual…whether this means no one can own more than 49% of a team, or that 51% would make more sense, depends on how this would ultimately impact decision-making, at the Board level, or how the lowering of those percentages would discourage/encourage those with the means to involve themselves in some sort of monetary capacity
To me, the fans protecting are just wasting there energy.
There is nothing they can do to make him sell the club if he doesn’t want to.
He can even decide to make a fight with fans by not altering a word but refusing to sell the club for 2 years cos he surely know Arsenal value will come back up no matter what.
Do you think fans will continue heavy protesting for 2 years? Worst they can do is stop coming to stadium and stop buying merchandise but I can bet you that, many will still come to the stadium and many will buy the merchandise.
When a fan is relinquishing his season ticket, another fan picks up immediately.
I knew many fans on JA who decided to stop going to matches and stop buying merchandise but did that stop the stadium not getting filled up.
Kroenke might decided to spend millions on players this transfer window to get back the fans faith.
Before Kroenke can get to where he his now, he would have went through alot with different people and don’t tell me he won’t have so many enemies, but does that put him down?
It only makes him stronger cos he has a thick skin.
So saying, fan must do everything to push him out is nothing to me except if there is legal way to do it which I don’t see.
Me as a person, no amount of abuse can make me change, I will even continue doing it to frustrate such person.
What if he tries to frustrate us fans like we are frustrating him and the only way to frustrate us is not selling the club.
So please, let stop trying to deceive ourselves that, we fan can push him out of the club. We can’t, not all fan will subscribe to boycotting games.
Or do you think fans outside England will also ignore watching the match?
Arsenal is the only thing that still make weekends interesting.
Someone like me, I can’t stop watching Arsenal and buying merchandise.
So let the fan be at the Emirate tomorrow by 6pm to protest but with no hope of getting there request.
We don’t always get what we want.
“Me as a person, no amount of abuse can make me change, I will even continue doing it to frustrate such person”…this comment speaks volumes about you as a person…let’s hope that Kroenke isn’t quite so petty and spiteful as you appear to be…that said, I very much doubt you would be so consumed by the notion of frustrating those who rallied against you if there were billions of dollars on the line…considering Kroenke’s primary motivation has always revolved around the accumulation of wealth, I’m sure he would cut and run if the situation became untenable and his advisors felt that he could suffer considerable financial losses should he chose to stay
this comment speaks volumes about you as a person…let’s hope that Kroenke isn’t quite so petty and spiteful as you appear to be…
Calm down man.
I may be bad, I may be good, you can’t know that until you actually roll… along with me.
Jon Fox is someone people don’t really like on this blog, but you know why I don’t criticise his personal image? Because he might be a good loving guy with good heart.
I know you will claim you’re the best person on heart but believe me, many of your friends still believe you’re among the bad ones. That’s how the world rolls.
Pablo Escobar was so much loved by his village people but he was a scaring drug dealer, so man, don’t get ahead of yourself with someone behind a keyboard.
Many people might hate Kroenke in England, though he put me off after his animal killing channel but do you know how many people love him?
I’m not exactly sure what to make of this above diatribe, but the difference between you and me is that I appear to know vastly more about our absentee landlord, as I’ve followed his misadventures as owner of the Avalanche(NHL), Nuggets(NBA), Rams and, of course, Arsenal…not to mention I’ve heavily researched his rise into the Billionaire classes, including the way he used his marital connections to his Walmart heiress, to acquire considerable wealth while barely lifting a finger…not to mention his numerous and dubious real estate dealings which preyed upon the most vulnerable during economic downturns and/or market crashes…that said, I don’t know you from Adam, but I know myself and I know one thing for sure I ain’t no Kroenke
Legislation won’t happen, successive governments opened the door to Oligarchs, oil rich nations and the Kroenkes to invest in the country’s assets they are not going to pull the plug anytime soon. Politicians will jump on any bandwagon if it means more voters. What makes it more unlikely is the post Covid economic downturn when the country will need to attract more foreign investment when rules will more likely be loosened further. Just my opinion though!!