Hill-wood Denies Prospect Of Arsenal Sale

Arsenal chairman Peter Hill-Wood has moved to quash speculation that he is
prepared to sell his stakeholding to Alisher Usmanov stating that he will listen
to the Russian billionaire’s views but would under no circumstances discuss any
sale.

Usmanov, who now sits on the Arsenal board after buying the 14.58% stake in
the club from former vice-chairman David Dein, will believed to be eager to take
majority control by increasing his stakeholding.

Dein retains an interest in the club having been made chairman of Usmanov’s
Red and White Holdings company which now retains the 14.58% stakeholding in
Arsenal.

However Hill-Wood denied that he was prepared to sell to the Russian
billionaire stating: ‘The major shareholders have no intention of selling and
wouldn’t welcome an offer. But we will have a dialogue with any principal or
major shareholder. If they’ve got some sensible proposals we’ll listen to them.’

Hill-Wood also defended the Arsenal board’s strategy of fiscal prudence,
commenting: ‘I have no objection to foreign investors coming into the Premier
League, it’s going to be beneficial. Most of them are investment people and
they’re not buying into clubs because they have the passion for the local team
they have supported since they were two years old.

‘They think that football and the Premier League is an attractive investment
and they want a return on that. That will work in our favour. There will be a
more sensible attitude in transfer fees at silly levels and all this sort of
thing.

‘People putting £100m in are going to want to see how they can make a profit.
To go on paying more to players is not justified or sensible. We have always run
Arsenal as a business and kept within reasonable bounds.

‘All this nonsense about needing a billionaire to put a whole lot of money in
to help shore up the annual deficit is not going to happen – it’s lunacy.’