Opinion: Why is everyone so positive about Daniel Ek’s ownership? A football club isn’t Spotify

Daniel Ek is upping the ante in his bid to buy Arsenal from Stan Kroenke and the club’s fans love to see it.

The Swede has emerged as a saviour to fans who have become fed up with the current owners.

A new owner would bring about a breath of fresh air and we can finally forget about the perceived money-grabbing Kroenke family.

Ek seems a serious guy and he has even enlisted the support of some former Arsenal players to help his bid.

The Spotify co-founder and CEO is showing the right spirit and the relentlessness that suggests that he truly wants to save his beloved club.

His gesture has made some Arsenal fans forget that the ultimate aim of any business owner is to make money.

Even though he is a fan of the club, his current action is just a show of interest. It doesn’t count when it comes to running the club.

There is hardly any prospective club buyer who hasn’t steered up excitement among the fan base by making some outrageous and believable promises.

When some eventually acquire a club, they realise how tough it is to own a football team and they either run it into the ground or sell up and leave.

I am not in any way suggesting that Ek will be worse than Kroenke, but what is the guarantee that he actually knows how to run a football club and can be a better owner compared to Kroenke?

I want to see the back of the current owners, but I think some of us have an exaggerated idea of how successful the team would be if Ek buys it.

An article from Ime

Tags Daniel Ek

35 Comments

  1. Everyone is positive, because he actually seems to know about football being an Arsenal, unlike the Kroenke’s.

    I’m not too excited myself. Kroenke will never sell, but even if he does, we’re just jumping from one billionaire with full control to another. For me, I’d like to ownership change, so that one individual does not own it all, with no one to answer to.

    1. I agree that Kronke’s won’t sell. Their American franchises aren’t particularly successful but their business model does seem to be “long-term” possession of assets. Yes Ek is a fan but he’s also a businessman first and foremost. The German model of club ownership is something the powers that be should take a good look at?

      1. 👍 Agree, Gg, the legislators in the UK have been too disconnected, if not outright negligent, to allow British institutions like football clubs to fall into the hands of foreign owners, particularly some with disreputable sources of incomes.

      2. It wouldn’t work in the UK and could even be the end of the PL as we know it !how many billionnaires do you know who would want to by an english club for billions and invest hundreds more knowing that he has only 49% of shares and can’t make the decisions/run the club the way he sees it? let’s not forget lower wages for players managers..how do you think it will end up? I’ll tell you with the best players/managers going to other leagues Spanish French..to clubs like Barca RM PSG Juventus then less people would watch the PL meaning more losses of revenues for broadcasters and English clubs!

  2. As much as I want the club to be free of any billionaire once those traitors sold their shares to kroenke it was game over for any hope of fan on board level like in Spain or Germany. Only a billionaire can buy from a billionaire. We just gotta hope we get one that gives a shit.

  3. I mean we hope that he is a winner.

    In my opinion EK can see the fact that whilst kreonke is making some money from arsenal. He could be making a heck of alot more. Arsenla imho are the 2nd or 3rd biggest club in the UK. And maybe the 5th biggest in the world.

    We have a huge amount of fan. An amazing stadium and bundles of potential. All we need is a revamp. Starting with a good manager. Lets say we got in klopp or conte or a proven winner and we win the prem. That would do bundles for us as a club. Look how Liverpool have become alive again in recent times.

    Anyway that’s ehat I see ek seeing.

    1. 👍 The mentality of the Club has to be markedly improved from top to bottom. Mediocrity is accepted by too many, who see Arsenal FC as a “milk cow”.

  4. Hope it pans out.Bf the US owner took over,Arseal were among top 5 clubs in the world .Now they are in 12/13 position.
    Assuming the bid is successful,it would take the gunners two to three seasons bf they can win the epl

    .

  5. Has passion for football, a club, a :top brand Arsenal!

    Hé wants Arsenal back on top, loves Arsenal

    With Spotify usérs, fan base be bigger, WE all do already and way more use it, love another club.

    That would bé a power move, a grenat cobranding, a party at stadium!

    1. mogunna, unfortunately Ek will still be operating under the same rules. One could hope at least that given the support of Bergkamp, Viera and Henry, Ek will put in place highly competent people at the top levels of management to maximise the effectiveness of available funds to all the Arsenal to reach its full potential.

    1. PD, it is unfortunate when all hope dies. We must keep the embers alive, to see how difficultife becomes for the Kroenkes.
      Their last little misadventure cost a £20 million fine to the EPL.

  6. But are the Kroenkes actually grabbing money from Arsenal? In the true sense of the matter, are they taking away money made by Arsenal from the club? Or they leave the money in the coffers of the club to use it to run the club as a self sustaining business sporting football club enterprise without injecting any of their personal money into the club to run it I would imagine.

    Nevertheless, but if the Kroenkes have turn Arsenal to a cash milking cow to be ripping money from the club for themselves to take home, which if they do, they aren’t wrong doing so. Because they invested their money in Arsenal for profit making purpose but not for sporting passion or charity purposes. See, if Arsenal were losing money to go into bankruptcy, are the Kroenkes not the ones who will suffer most financially.

    I think I’ve read it sometimes ago that the Kroenkes don’t rip money from Arsenal which the club generates apart of the small wages that Mr Kroenke and his son Josh collect from the club as salaries. But I could be wrong.

    However, I will like it if evidence is provided to show that the Kroenkes have been grabbing money from Arsenal since Mr. Kroenke duoly with Usmanov and now singularly owned the club.

    I will be indifference to Daniel EK owning Arsenal FC if he succeeded at buying the club from the Kroenkes. Whom according to reports don’t want to sell their Arsenal FC to any prospective business sporting outfit investors. More especially the investors who want to compel them they the Kroenkes to sell off the club to them.

    But if Daniel EK succeeds to buy Arsenal from the Kroenkes, FINE. I don’t have any axe in comments making to grind over his success to buy Arsenal. For, before he finally succeeded to buy the club. that’s assuming the Kroenkes agree to sell to him. Ek proposal to buy Arsenal will undergo serious scrutiny by the England business regulatory body to see if he has necessary integrity required to qualify him to buy and own a big Premier League club side of Arsenal high status. And if he passed the integrity scrutiny and buys Arsenal. Well. Good and fine for him. Us Gooners will hope to see if his ownership of Arsenal FC lead to a much achievements level for Arsenal than Stan kroenke ownership era of owning the club has brought for Arsenal FC.

  7. “His gesture has made some Arsenal fans forget that the ultimate aim of any business owner is to make money”…this isn’t a completely truthful statement, as many take on ownership as a vanity project and/or a pseudo-Billionaires pissing contest…long gone are the days when ownership was largely dispersed amongst the wealthiest members of each respective community, but that doesn’t mean nothing personal is at stake for those who enter the fray without a discernable historical connection

    it’s clear that the connection between our club and it’s owner is an example of the least desirable dichotomy, as he’s neither a fan of the club and/or sport nor concerned with doing whatever it takes to bring championship level football back to North London…other models, like United, who flex their financial muscle on a fairly consistent basis, but aren’t heavily involved in the day-to-day operation, or City, where they splash the cash and leave the footballing operations to the actually experts, which is not too dissimilar to Chelsea, except that Roman is far more involved at the club level and has considerably less patience when it comes to the process, or in Pool, where they brought in a savvy collection of teambuilders, under the meticulous direction of one of the best managers in Europe, then simply followed his lead, or even the Leicester model, who developed an intensive scouting system, due to their obvious financial limitations, then identified and acquired specific players who best reflected their manager’s vision and who likewise saw the inherent value in encouraging a stronger connection between ownership and the community at large

    all of these above models, albeit differing in nature, are far more desirable options than the Arsenal ownership model, where they haven’t splashed the cash or brought in the best and the brightest or developed a successful asset management/scouting/recruitment strategy, that best reflects their financial realities, or even attempted whatsoever to try and humanize the non-existent relationship that has become the norm since the Kroenke’s first arrived in North London…to put it bluntly, it’s the worst of both worlds

    1. TRVL, the Glaziers at Manchester United are in fact worse than the Kroenkes, in that they have taken a club which was self sustaining and debt free and leveraged it to the hilt, burdening it with considerable debt, estimated to be in an amount of £534.8 million (2021). This was condoned by the FA and the UK Government despite the complaints of fans.
      Since they took over in 2005, the Glaziers are estimated to have drained out more than £1 billion. (refer David Conn “The Guardian”

      1. OG…that said, at least they care about winning, regardless of the financial implications of their misguided decisions

  8. I prefer Ek because I assume he knows football better than Kroenke, can make better decisions and can be more involved in the operations. Kroenke just replaces his employees when things go wrong, although Arsenal’s turnover isn’t as bad as Chelsea’s

    If my assumption is correct, hopefully Ek can change Arsenal’s complacency culture. However, I expect him to take over two years later, because I want to see what Arteta can do next season

    1. that is great thought, Kreonke will never take Arsenal where even if he may stayed there for decades.

  9. How I wish Chelsea owner succeeded or really bought arsenal instead of Chelsea, or it was Man City owner we have or PSG owner, those are kind of owner arsenal needs, that are ready to invest money into the club and especially the squad immediately after buying the club. Do we know how many years it takes Chelsea owner to start making profit or having a return of his investment. We don’t want owner that will promise heaven and earth before buying arsenal but when they eventually buy the club they will change. Though kroenke never promise us anything but the people that have shares then, including fans thought is high time for us to have a rich owner so that we can compete but unfortunately it was kroenke that have highest shares and more money to buy other people’s share and the fan base own too.
    Whether people will accept this particular point I want to add now or not, Arsene wenger also contributed to our problem, kroenke idea’s of thinking it was initiated by wenger and he thought them that, because wenger never wish this became reality that we now have,….. billionaire’s buying clubs and willing to pump money into their respective club. That is why wenger cannot manage in any other club even after he left arsenal…
    Let us just pray and hope kroenke decide to sell this club ( or ready to spend like Chelsea owner or Man City owner),…. Or to either russia billionaire or Arab billionaire that are really ready to splash alot of money into the squad and the club entirely.

    1. Arsenal fans are desperate to see Arsenal bought by anybody and this is due to Kroenke ownership failing to make Arsenal competitive on the pitch.

      To say that Kroenke has not been investing in the team is misleading, Some marquee signings have been made eg Auba,Laca,Pepe and now Partey. If Arsenal manage their transfer dealings efficiently they will be a very strong team. At the moment Leicester is performing better than Arsenal but I don’t think it is because they have been spending more money than Arsenal, it is only that they have been spending wisely and managing their club better, that is what Arsenal needs to do whether under Kroenke or somebody else.

      1. Kicking the kronk crooks out ain’t the only solution to what arsenal is going thru, but a step in the right direction. Aside that the arsenal needs to be reinvented by starting from the board room clearing out those incompetent people there. The club needs to adopt the models use by Bayern Munich by having legends and competent people in there running it.

    2. Oba, I personally would not want to be associated with a club owned by a Russian oligarch, backed by black money or a repressive middle eastern or other country regime. It is bad enough to be owned by someone who moved a city’s NFL team, because the citizens refused to bankroll a new stadium or whose wife’s family made their fortune from underpaying workers, breaking unions and destroying small businesses.
      At least Daniel Ek has made his money more ethically (although some may argue that point).

  10. Its a deep conversation isn’t it, one side we have our hapless multiple francaise owners. There was a air of hope when they took over over 10 years ago. Mega rich (even richer now) experienced sports club owners, and if they could have turned us into a club that made money on the same level as the rams it would have been great. But they didn’t, they just add clubs to their portfolio to boost their worth and live off the proceeds.

    The the Arab and Russian owner argument. Are we really willing to sell out to win, I question if you are a football fan if you do. Their method is immoral, unjust and a black mark on our game. Even though they win titles, their achievements always come tarnished with ” you had to buy a squad with billions to win it” so have they actually achieved something. Or have they done something similar to a sprinter that takes anabolic steroids to win the race. They have in fact cheated to get to the top they haven’t earned their place at the top they bought it.

    Then the Leicester model is the truest version of ownership. Have an owner who loves his club has a healthy relationship with his players and uses the market wisely and efficiently. Sounds familiar, because that was our model before the Kronkies and the Russian/Arab money. People forget Campbell, Viera, Toure, Petit, Gilberto, Llungberg, Cole, Lauren and the like cost next to nothing if not anything at all. Alot of them were part of an unbeatable squad.

    If Ek ever does succeed I would hope he does the right thing. Follow Leicester and Liverpools example of finding the right people to run his club. Be involved with the fans and the players. And most of all bring my Arsenal back in the right way

    1. James I add my own admiration of your comments to those other mature fans who agree with you.

  11. The main thing is he’s getting Henry, Vieira and Bergkamp involved. Which I think shows he’s going to at the very least put people who know about the game at board level which is something we’ve been missing for years

  12. The way Arsenal is right not, even Snapchat is more valuable than it, EK should please hesten

  13. James am not saying you do not have some point but don’t forget that those period of Campbell, Henry, Anelka and co, do you know how much some of them cost that time or to bring them to arsenal, David Dein did some very good job and we do spend money then. Saying we should follow Liverpool step, do you want to tell me Liverpool do not always spend from benitez era down to klopp. Assuming Chelsea owner bought arsenal then, you will not say we(arsenal) bought our way to the top like the way Chelsea, Man City and co did. Man utd always be at the top but Glazer came in, still spend so that they will remain there. We just have to wake up to reality, that now you have to spend very well to maintain that top, not that you will buy one £45 million pounds player in one transfer window and you expect to be in top four, whereas we need more than one of such spending spree in that transfer window. Likewise in another window, we bought pepe £72 million pounds and 2 additional less quality one is loan and the other one free, if am right and you expect arsenal to win the league likewise Arteta came in waste all the time bought partey £45 million, Gabriel and Willian free transfer and one loan player again that never improve us and you want to win league or be in top four.
    If you need 5 players, then buy super quality by splashing that money otherwise we will still remain where we are or even go downward…

    1. I agree with you to an extent and probably rewind before we won our first title in 98 we probably wouldn’t have known the difference between earning a title or buying a title. But Wenger created a club of integrity, football moral philosophy and the Arsenal DNA.

      You say about how much our players cost. but utd bought Van Nistleroy for 19.5m Rio for 29m Nani for 17m and needbi go on. All whilst we had spend 9.5m on Henry, 7.5m on Gilberto and Bobby Pires for 7.5m so even then Utd were outspending us 3 to 1. The feelings your having to want oligarch ownership is because your desperattion for good times to return. Beleive me, like you that’s something I want more than anything in the world, but not at the cost of our integrity.

      Wenger created a club that was the envy of the world. Not just on the pitch but off it too, a business model that was copied and improved by Liverpool and Leicester. Both who’s net spend like Arsenal under Wenger was outstanding.

      The club is at ground zero, there were and still are alot of issues off the field that have affected our team on the field. Things like poor recruitment, the over reliance on agents for player purchases and poor business management on a commercial/retail level. I’m in the Arteta gets up to one more year with a review at Christmas. Edu has this summer to prove his worth. Has told Edu what he needs and its upto the Edu and his team to execute it. Can we blame Arteta if Edu gets the recruitment wrong???? We all know the big issue with arsenal over the years is poor performance by the team signing our players. Plus the fact we often get priced out of deals especially in the early city years where they used Arsenal as their feeder club and scouting team.

      But a good point

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