Foreign owners ‘good for English football’
Football
By
-bbc
| Dec 01, 2013
LONDON
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| Alisher Usmanov. [PHOTO: BBC SPORT] |
Britain’s richest man and Arsenal shareholder Alisher Usmanov has defended the foreign ownership of Premier League clubs, saying it’s good for the English game.
The billionaire said the growing influence of overseas shareholders was not stripping the sport of its identity in England.
And while he praised Arsenal’s impressive start to the Premier League season, he said he reserved the right to criticise the club’s board if he felt they weren’t getting things right.
The Russian, who has a fortune of more than £13bn, has spent more than £200m over the last six years, building a 30% stake in the Gunners.
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He has been involved in an uneasy stand-off with the club’s American majority shareholder Stan Kroenke, accusing him and chief executive Ivan Gazidis of failing to invest sufficient money in Arsene Wenger’s team despite significant reserves of cash.
Usmanov has stated he would like to take full control of Arsenal in the event of Kroenke ever deciding to sell.
Asked whether it was right that so many top English clubs were now foreign-owned, he said: “It’s an artificial question which somebody wants to put on the table.
“Everyone who has legal right to buy something can perform this right.
“We have Kroenke, [Aston Villa’s Randy] Lerner, many, many people and now many Asian owners. I think everyone is comfortable if the club are successful.
“If the club are not successful then, of course, everybody wants to find somebody guilty.”
In recent years, investments from outside the United Kingdom in Premier League clubs have included Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich at Chelsea in 2003, American Malcolm Glazer taking control at Manchester United in 2005 and Sheikh Mansour from Abu Dhabi buying Manchester City in 2008 from former Thailand prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
“I’m sure it is good [for English football],” added Usmanov. “When investors come and invest in the economy, in British football, it is a big part of the entertainment economy in the United Kingdom.
“What’s bad?”
With the Football Association chairman Greg Dyke establishing a commission to examine the underperformance of the English national team, Usmanov appeared to hint that top clubs like Arsenal needed to work harder to get the right mix between foreign and English players.
— BBC Sport