Arsènal (24 page)

Lady Nina's loyalty to her family's 80-year history with Arsenal and her fellow directors was tested when Dein suggested, in the interests of the club's future, that there might be a better home for her shares. Dein certainly underestimated the pleasure Lady Nina got from her new role and her empathy with the direction the board felt the club should be going in. Talking about the episode in February 2008 she said, “He [Dein] spoke to Kroenke on his own initiative and Kroenke is a businessman with a different agenda. The board are fans.” In her view, by trying to get Kroenke on board, David Dein was going against his own repeated response to the suggestion that there should be a fan's representative on its board – “An Arsenal fan, who do you think we [the Directors] are then?”. Now, in Lady Nina's view, he was attempting to bring in a stranger “who might use the club for profit”. She relayed her discussion with Dein to her colleagues who felt that his manoeuvring could no longer be tolerated. A special board meeting was convened and a decision reached to give David Dein his cards. Peter Hill-Wood confirmed that “the vote was 100 per cent unanimous”. A letter informing Dein that he was no longer a director of Arsenal Football Club, signed by all of the other board members, was handed to him at the club's Highbury House offices by the chairman on Wednesday 18th April 2007, the morning after Arsenal had beaten Manchester City at home as the season wound down. “Chips Keswick was with me,” Hill-Wood explained. “If you have a potential confrontation it's better to have two people present than one.” Sir Chips Keswick was one of two non-executive directors appointed to the board in November 2005, Lord Harris of Peckham being the other.

On the decision of one woman, “inexperienced with regard to football politics” according to Dein, but whose heart was indisputably in the right place, Arsenal Football Club remained on the same course it had been following since Danny Fiszman became the major shareholder in 1996. Whether it was the right one was open to debate.

Dein's fate had been determined by a sequence of events no one could have predicted when he was instrumental in bringing Arsène Wenger to the club in 1996. The on-field success enabled the board to contemplate moving way upmarket, and in doing so the specialist financial acumen required saw Dein shunted aside. If he had still been in charge, the Emirates would probably never have come about. Now, as the board could envisage 60,000 filing in at least 20 times a season, they justifiably felt their bold choice had been fully vindicated. But in Dein's eyes, investment was needed to complete the picture. What price a wonderful new stadium if there wasn't a wonderful new team playing in it who could send all their rivals packing? No prophet in his own land, he had felt compelled to take tremendous personal gambles to try to achieve his objective. And the prospect of returning to a greater position of influence than he had enjoyed since Keith Edelman's arrival would have been no disincentive.

Dein was not helped in his relationship with his fellow directors by the involvement of his son Darren in club-related business. Initially working for agent Jerome Anderson, Darren went on to represent several Arsenal players, including Thierry Henry. The other directors warned his father about the potential conflict of interest, a notion denied by the vice-chairman. Yet their fears would not have been allayed when the chairman spotted Darren Dein at the hotel when the board struck their agreement with Emirates in early 2004. “I was surprised that he was hovering about the hotel when we had this secret meeting,” recalls Peter Hill-Wood, “which obviously wasn't as secret as we thought it was. I had no idea that he was anywhere near it [the naming rights negotiation]. But I think he must have had some involvement.” It probably didn't help his father's cause.

David Dein's exit was unceremonious. Choosing not to sign a contractual letter of dismissal, the vice-chairman was forced to clear his desk and leave behind the company perks such as his mobile phone and any monetary settlement. As far as the board were concerned, he was now
persona non grata
. Dein said his dismissal felt “like a family bereavement. Initially there is shock, then the grieving.” By the time Arsenal played at home again on 29th April, the nameplate below Dein's seat in the directors' box had been removed, and the seats he and wife Barbara had traditionally occupied were filled by others. For a few days he lay low until the paparazzi gave up camping outside his Totteridge home for pictures or comments, deluding them into believing that he had gone abroad when in reality he simply hadn't left the house.

In negotiating with Kroenke, David Dein would have felt he was acting in Arsenal's best interests but he was certainly acting on his own initiative. Chairman Peter Hill-Wood justified his dismissive rejection of the American (“We don't want his sort and we don't want his money”) by saying “I didn't know what he wanted to do. I had absolutely no idea. I defend the integrity of Arsenal Football Club. We're going to have some unknown American buying control? I didn't think that was good and I still don't think it's good.”

To put it mildly, Arsène Wenger was not happy at losing his pal and closest ally on the board. However, by the time Hill-Wood went to see him at the training ground the next morning, he had – after discussing the situation with Dein – decided to stay. Nevetheless, asked how Wenger took the news of his friend's sacking, Hill-Wood recalls, “Not very well. I didn't expect him to. I know perfectly well he's friendly with David and still is.” (Indeed, the two remain in constant touch and have occasionally been spotted together with their wives enjoying a meal in a local restaurant.) The chairman believes the manager wanted to stay because “he enjoys what he's doing”. Ken Friar was detailed to take over Dein's work on contract and transfer negotiations and prepared himself for a busy summer ahead.

Some months after his departure, Dein was “still feeling the pain”. Anger had replaced grief as the predominant emotion. He felt that he was the victim of a personal vendetta. “They [the board] were jealous of my profile.” And he could have added influence at the top tables. When he was replaced by Keith Edelman as Arsenal's representative on G14, the members were disappointed to lose such a knowledgeable administrator. The Arsenal board, Dein felt, were out of touch and not acting in the club's best interests. He cited a regional Premier League meeting at which no Arsenal representative had bothered to attend. Additionally, no-one took the plane to Switzerland for UEFA Club Forum meetings at which a number of other English clubs were present. Even Peter Kenyon of Chelsea, his long-time adversary, expressed astonishment at what he took to be Arsenal's new non-interventionist policy.

Admitting sorely missing “the buzz of being in the inner circle” (with club, country, UEFA and FIFA) Dein began to carve out a new role for himself as a speaker on the football conference circuit, his opinions on the state of the game still carrying enough gravitas for him to be much in demand. He was also sought after by his former competitors who, having enjoyed jousting with him across boardrooms and Premier League meetings, felt his experience would be an invaluable asset to their clubs. However as a one-club man, whilst flattered by the offers, he rejected top management roles at Newcastle, Everton and Barcelona.

He was determined to keep his own counsel. He recalled the dignified way the actress Koo Stark back in the 1980s refused all temptation and pressure to kiss and tell about her escapade with Prince Andrew. He was going to keep his powder dry until the opportunity arose to respond to what he called his “brutal sacking”. In the meantime, he contented himself with justifying what Stan Kroenke could have brought to the party. “All the very wealthy football investors I've met are in it for the sport,” he claims. “They want some fun out of it. They're not looking for a return on their investment. OK, they don't want to lose anything, they have put in good money, but, invariably, it represents only a very small part of their overall wealth. It is a passion investment. They could put the money in the bank but that would be boring.” It was a view that wouldn't be shared by everyone at Old Trafford.

Despite Dein's exit, the Kroenke story wouldn't go away and the furore was such that Peter Hill-Wood wrote to all shareholders reassuring them about the board's resolve to resist any takeover. And, exceptionally, the reclusive Danny Fiszman went public for the first time anyone could remember, agreeing to an interview for Sky Sports News. He was adamant that the club was not for sale. “We are open to anything that will improve the club but it's going to be very, very difficult to explain to me and to the rest of board how you can actually make substantial investment – which would be another £400 million, £500 million, £600 million – and not expect a return for that. If it's just an eight to 10 per cent return, you're talking about £50 million or so. That's got to come out of the club, otherwise there's no point making a purchase. I don't know how they're going to be able to improve the finances of the club at that sort of amount.” And anyway as long as the directors remained united, a takeover would be impossible. “The board has 45.5 per cent of the shares. We also obviously have friends which takes us over 50 per cent. They [Kroenke/Dein] can mount a hostile bid but they're never going to gain control. The future of the club is in the hands of the board.” To prevent further speculation, this stance was confirmed by the entire board signing a lockdown agreement for 12 months, which meant they could not sell any shares until April 2008 at the earliest.

Around this time the Arsenal Supporters' Trust (AST) emerged as a key opinion-former on the ownership issue. Formed in 2003 to bring together the smaller shareholders under one umbrella, the AST's board represented its members in discussions with the Arsenal board and other significant shareholders. Comprising a number of highly qualified professionals from the banking, legal and PR industries, they could talk to the directors on equal terms about the minutiae of Arsenal's business and quickly won the respect of all those who dealt with them. They discovered that following the share issue to Granada in 2005, one authorised share was left unissued due to a mathematical error. Dubbed the ‘orphan share', the AST ran a successful campaign to persuade the club to donate the share to them for safekeeping. They also secured the club's backing (and promised financial assistance) to start up a sharesave scheme to allow supporters to contribute towards the eventual purchase of shares in the club. When the AST launched its own website, they contacted the club to have a link posted on arsenal.com. The result was an immediate placing at the very top of the list of Fanzone entries on the site's homepage, even above links to the club's own pages for its recognised roster of supporters' clubs and the Junior Gunners. There was no doubt they were the board's favoured sons in the fan fraternity (which included the Arsenal Independent Supporters' Association (AISA) and REDaction). Further, the media recognised them as a reliable source on how the rank and file viewed proceedings. Prepared to talk to all parties, the AST kept in touch with David Dein, cognizant of his con siderable stake, and kept an open mind as to the benefits of greater involvement from Stan Kroenke (but were always consistent in saying they would not support a debt-laden or hostile takeover).

Publicly, Kroenke never commented on his association with Dein. He had probably expected him to obtain Lady Nina's shareholding in the light of paying top dollar for ITV's 9.99 per cent. After that failed, short of selling up himself, all he could do was to bide his time and ensure his investment was in safe hands. Visiting the UK in October 2007 on the occasion of an NFL match at Wembley between the New York Giants and the Miami Dolphins, ‘Silent Stan' (as he is known due to his public reticence) was asked about his relationship with the Arsenal board. “It's a partnership at the moment,” he responded. “Everybody has a tendency to speed up but actually these things take a lot of time and a lot of effort and many years to develop. We tend to look in the long term. If you are an investor in a sports team and you don't look long term you are probably not a good investor. This is a strategic investment for us.” He sounded a lot more cautious than the type of big spender David Dein had in mind.

Presumably Dein had also come to this conclusion and on 30th August 2007 he emerged from his Totteridge bunker and announced, at a specially convened press conference, that he had sold his shares to Red and White Holdings Ltd, a company specifically formed to acquire shares in Arsenal by Moscow-based billionaire Alisher Usmanov and his right-hand man Farhad Moshiri. Part of the deal, which paid Dein the handsome sum of £75 million for his shares, was that he was installed as the new company's chairman. Presumably if Usmanov was ultimately successful in securing control of Arsenal, Dein would be back in the saddle again.

A statement issued at the press conference to announce the purchase of the former vice-chairman's shares indicated that Red and White Holdings intended “to approach the board of Arsenal in the near future to discuss its ideas, to understand the future direction of Arsenal and to explore areas of potential cooperation.” It followed up with the assertion (reiterating Dein's long-held conviction) that “Red and White believes that in order to remain competitive at the top level of the game, Arsenal will require access to significant funding.” The speculation that Red and White were interested in a takeover was supported by Farhad Moshiri commenting that “we look forward to increasing our stake”. And there was no hanging about as, within a month, they had raised their stake from Dein's 14 per cent to 23 per cent, putting themselves well on the way to overtaking Danny Fiszman as the largest shareholder. Immediately the share price rocketed to £10,000 as Red and White bought out some prominent smaller shareholders such as the hedge fund Lansdowne Holdings and Birol Nadir, son of the Polly Peck tycoon Asil Nadir.