Arsenal owner Stan Kroenke gives unequivocal backing for Arsène Wenger to extend his stay into third decade Stan Kroenke is only five minutes into a near hour-long interview but any doubts over whether he wants Arsène Wenger to continue into an unprecedented third decade as Arsenal manager have already evaporated.
Theres no one I feel more strongly about and I think he is doing a great job, says Kroenke. We have been very supportive, we have never wavered, we are proud of him, proud of the club, the way the club is run and how it holds itself out to the world.
Wenger is now in the final season of his three-year contract but, when asked whether the clubs most successful manager remains central to his long-term Arsenal vision, Kroenke could not be more emphatic. Thats exactly right, he says. Arsène knows how we feel, what our philosophy is, what we want to do and I feel like we are totally aligned. I think he wants to do it the exact same way as we do.
There is a caveat, however. While Kroenke senses that Wengers passion is undiminished for what he has called the club of my life, he also knows that his manager is approaching 64 and, by common consent, has just endured one of the most challenging periods of his 17-year tenure at
Arsenal.
Initial talks have been held and an offer will be made but Wenger has so far suggested that he still feels a need to prove himself again. Kroenke does not share that sentiment and, with the team having made such a good start to the season, there is optimism on both sides that a deal will be struck.
Arsène is his own man, he will make up his own mind, says Kroenke. There is a lot of pressure in the job, he has handled it very well but at some point we all make up our minds whether we continue in our careers. I dont want to say something about Arsène that is not the way he feels but, to me, I think he seems to love what he does. I had my son and a bunch of his friends at the training ground. A couple of them are NBA players. "We were standing out in the rain watching. It rained like hell. This was going on for several hours. I was getting worried about players getting hit by lightning and Arsène was out in the middle of it. Hes out there coaching every day. Youve got to love that or you cant do it. Thats a passion.
Wenger is already the longest-serving manager of a
Premier League club by 14 years and, despite all the change that has gone on around him, retains full power over Arsenals entire football operation. Kroenke does not want to alter that structure and also stresses that Arsenals funds their annual turnover will soon join
Manchester United at over £300 million will be available for further signings of the magnitude of the £42 million Mesut Özil deal.
I really enjoy Arsène very smart, very intelligent, says Kroenke. He has an absolute view on how he runs that team and the club. He has earned that right. Dont look for me to interfere with that. I have learnt over the years that sometimes owners try do that and it is not so good. Weve always said that there are resources available. There are guys who say that we should push Arsène harder to spend. Thats fair enough there are always lots of opinions but Arsène is an independent thinker and planner. He works very hard at it and has a wonderful record. He was trained in economics.
Wenger has previously likened football to art and, beyond just economics, it is clear that he has found something of a kindred spirit. Kroenke even admits that the presence of Wenger, as well as the clubs London location, infrastructure and business model, was fundamental in his decision to start buying Arsenal shares in 2007. Indeed, having begun watching Arsenal closely when they won the Premier League/FA Cup double of 2002, Kroenke still regards it as my big mistake not to become involved sooner. The way they play, the passing, the ball movement, its beautiful to watch, he says. Its boom, boom, boom someone has got space and they open it up. Its fun. Basketball is where I spent a lot of my youth. I could shoot the basket but the best feeling in basketball is when one of your team-mates makes a great pass.
It all amounts to the most resounding possible endorsement but Kroenke still debunks the idea that the club or indeed Wenger are satisfied simply by regular top-four finishes. Arsenal lead the Premier League table and it is winning this competition that he craves above all others.
There would be nothing more thrilling, says Kroenke. Im not getting any younger. Its something I would like to achieve. Ive done it a couple of times in the US [in ice-hockey, American football and Major League Soccer] and it was unbelievable. "For the players, for the coaches and the manager, as well everyone around the club, I cant imagine the level of excitement. The idea that no one cares or is passionate about that sort of thing is just beyond the realms of imagination. It is certainly difficult to spend time in Kroenkes company and not be persuaded that his passion for Arsenal is both genuine and growing. He is generally in London on a monthly basis and spends between 30-40 days a year in England on Arsenal-related matters. When he is in the US, contact with chief executive Ivan Gazidis and new chairman Sir Chips Keswick is continuous. With NBC now streaming every Premier League game live, he can follow matches on his phone or iPad. Kroenke uses the word torturous to describe the experience of watching any of his sports teams.
Part of the problem of being involved is that you get drawn in so much it can ruin your day, ruin your weekend and it sticks with you, he says. My mom says the key to life is to stay balanced. I get too wrapped up in it. Kroenke is also keen to tackle head-on some of the fears and suspicions that have surrounded American owners in football. He is bemused by all the opposition to the Glazer family at Manchester United and, without prompting, cites the example of successful sports owners in the US who may take profits from their club. His argument is two-fold.
There are different rules in US sports which limit spending on player wages and so prevent clubs from investing all of their revenue back into the team.
Kroenke also highlights the risk that owners must now take in the billionaire world of professional sport and suggests that their ultimate responsibility is to underpin the clubs stability and on-field potential with the optimum commercial base.
You can say people are attracted by the Premier League around the world because they think they are going to come here and make a buck, he says. I think if they were looking at the league in the opposite way, you have got a lot of problems. I say to my friends, people should want a healthy commercial club. "When these teams fail, the ownership leaves, the players generally move on and the management get other jobs. The people that do stay are the fans. They are the core group.
If I was a fan, it would be extremely high on my list to get healthy revenues and a healthy system because that generally will have a correlation with the success of the club. "The Los Angeles Lakers in the US are big-time winners and their owners make it profitable, they take money for profit and yet the fans dont care. They were the single most healthy financial club in the NBA and they won the most. If youre Jerry Jones [the Dallas Cowboys owner] he has tremendous revenue but cant spend any more than the guy at Cincinnati. There are hard rules on that. Whether he takes money out of the club is irrelevant because he has been growing revenues and is limited by what he can spend.
And the Glazers? If I was a fan, I would go, OK, they have doubled the commercial revenues, they have been winning the Premier League, they moved well in the Champions League, they have reduced debt overall.
I just think it is so interesting because what else would you ask for? I really do think it goes back to a time when finances were a lot different. When people have literally billions invested, to sit there and say, this is an investment no one can touch. "Thats unlike any investment that I know of. It is hundreds of millions if things go wrong. Everybody assumes nothing ever goes wrong. In an economic world that is just not the case. Unlike the Glazer takeover at United, Kroenkes purchase of Arsenal did not place any debt or interest liability on the club. With the deal valuing Arsenal at £731 million, and payments structured over five years, it represented the single biggest outlay for a sports club in the world. Kroenke stresses that he has always supported Arsenals self-sustainable philosophy that makes the clubs natural revenues available for squad strengthening.
In answer to concerns that he might take money out of the club in other ways, he urges fans to assess his record during five years as an Arsenal director and almost two decades in American sport. With Alisher Usmanov still owning almost 30 per cent of the shares and seen by some fans as a potential sugar-daddy alternative, Kroenke is equally sure that the alternative billionaire benefactor model that has been seen at Chelsea, Manchester City and now Paris St-Germain would offer less stability.
People talk about throwing much more money at it, not towards me but some other owners, he says. Yeah, for a while. People dont do that indefinitely. Even the wealthiest guys and we know a bunch of them. After a while, they dont like doing it. So when that happens, what happens to the fans? I tend to think, what do I have, what are our commercial revenues, what can we do to help them have the highest level of quality on the pitch? And with his son Josh now running the basketball and ice-hockey operations in Denver, it is perfectly possible to imagine Arsenal being with the Kroenke family for a generation or more.
Theres a lot of reasons why you get involved, says Kroenke. I love sport. I like the values it teaches our youth. Ive taught my own children through it. When I couldnt play at the highest level, I always had a dream to own a team. Ive never sold a share and I dont have any interest in it. I always had the idea of building something long term. I could make a lot of money just flipping, selling it on. That doesnt appeal to me. I told my wife a while back, I guess we are lucky. On the one hand you could complain about me working too much, on the other hand I enjoy what I do.
"Thats why I work. I would like to be really clear. We are here and we like being here.