Arsenal would be sold for £600 million, not £350 million

Arsenal would be sold for £600 million, not £350 million

By Myles Palmer

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Friday's Sun EXCLUSIVE says Arsenal might be sold to a consortium for £350 million.

The consortium includes a Russian billionaire and three names are mentioned.

Metals tycoon Oleg Deripaska, 39, is Russia’s sixth-richest man with £4.8 billion and a former business partner of Abramovich.

Vladimir Potanin, 42, has £2 billion and oilman Ralif Safin, 51, has 1.5 billion.

The exiled Boris Berezovsky was at the recent Brazil-Argentina match at the Emirates stadium.

THIS NEWS does not surprise me.

I reckon this story is out there because somebody wants it out there.

Arsenal needed a big investor and I've been talking about this for months.But big investors want power.

If you are an oligarch, and you have a billion, you want to impress other oligarchs.You want to go to a big game and watch it in plush surroundings and have a laugh.If you can't do that, what's the point of being super-rich?

The super-rich watch each other very closely.

Last year Kia Joorabchian talked about buying Arsenal and thought it would cost £400 million.

At that time £500 million for Arsenal would have been cheap.

That was before the Emirates Stadium opened.

In The Professor I reported many AGMs and emphasised that the directors see themselves as the custodians of an English institution.

Historically, Arsenal was football's MCC and Highbury was like Lord's.

But football changed beyond recognition since the game sold its soul to Sky in 1992.

As George Graham once said to me, "When I played, it was a sport. Now it's a business."

George was a cunning businessman who bought players cheaply and sold them for loadsamoney.

LATER, borrowing £260 million was business.

Paying off that debt is business.

Flogging stylish sports entertainment to 9,000 corporate clients is business.

Building a £390 million stadium is big business.

Only Arsenal could have done that. Of all the football clubs in the world, only Arsenal could have done that.

THE EMIRATES should be a great business that can pay off Arsenal's debts.

But Arsenal FC has to be well-run and has to operate off the back of a successful team that is winning games and exciting 60,000 punters.

For the last six months some friends have asked : Does the present board have the energy and vision to take it to the next level? Or are they too old and exhausted by the effort of building the Emirates?

And I've usually said :They need new blood.And they need a dynamic young MD, they should go and get Mark Ashton from Watford.

Clearly, Danny Fiszman does not want to be chairman of Arsenal.

If he did he would be chairman now.

Peter Hill-Wood does not relish the responsibility any more.

David Dein would love to be chairman but the other directors have never allowed that.

Keith Edelman is not a football man, so that rules him out.

I think Arsenal will be sold for £600 million, not £350 million.

Any new regime would want to keep Arsene Wenger beyond 2008, when his contract is up.

And they might have to make David Dein chairman to keep Wenger.

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UPDATE : The club has said, "Arsenal Holdings plc have noted the speculation in the media that it has received an approach or has been in talks which may lead to an offer for the Company.

"The Board of Directors confirms that it is not and has not been in any such talks and has not received any such approach."

15th September 2006