Post by QPR Report on Dec 23, 2008 16:44:25 GMT
Brian Glanville GUNNERS FOR HIRE
23/12/08
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Turmoil at the Emirates. Not on the field, whatever the controversy over Emmanuel Adebayor’s expulsion last Sunday, but off it. In the boardroom. Exit involuntarily Lady Nina Bracewell Smith with her 15.9% of shares, estimated to be worth some £75,000,000.
Leaving the club and its directors plainly vulnerable to take over, were the Uzbek pluticrat Alisher Usmanov prepared to buy them; which at present he says he is not. Just as Lady Nina says she is not going to sell. Meanwhile, there is even rumour that a Middle Eastern syndicate could buy up the club. Lady Nina was bitterly upset at her dismissal. The reason appears to have been a disagreement with the main man the former diamond millionaire Danny Fiszman, over the recent appointment (much delayed) of a chief executive in the shape of one Ivan Gazidis, an Englishman who has been working at executive level in American soccer. It seems strange that Fiszman and Lady Nina could not agree to differ, but there we are. Abrupt exits from the Arsenal board have in recent times become a frequent phenomenon.
Out above all went David Dein, the chief mover and shaker, who had made his second vast profit when selling what remained of his shares to Fiszman himself. The word was that Dein wanted to bring the American billionaire and sports franchise holder Stank Kroenker on the board, where in fact he has now been installed with his 24% of the shares. It was also suggested that Dein was at odds with Fiszman and his allies over the siting of the new stadium, which he’d have preferred to see at Kings Cross rather than just across the road from the hallowed old Arsenal stadium.
Dein it was who then allied himself with Usmanov and it did seem possible that the Uzbek, who owns 24% of the shares while Fiszman, now living abroad, owns 24.1%. You could envisage Usmanov with his Red and White holdings moving in and bringing back Dein. In fact Dein has withdrawn from the company and Usmanov insists he doesn’t want to take over. Which by the laws of the financial world he would have to bid for, were he to acquire as many as 29% of the shares.
As for the chairman, Peter Hill-Wood, whose family have been crucially and influentially involved with the club since the era of Sir Samuel Hill-Wood in the 1920s, he often makes on record declarations, such as, unfortunately, his assertion when Kroenke came into the frame that he wasn’t the type of person Arsenal wanted. Followed by the humiliating sequel of Hill-Wood flying to America to beg Kroenke to join the board. The truth is, tradition or no tradition, Hill-Wood effectively if unwittingly signed away his powers when he sold his Arsenal shares to Dein for some £290,000, declaring at the time that they were effectively a dead letter. So they were then, but when the laws changed, there was Dein with a virtually controlling share, which had suddenly been activated.
Also forced off the Arsenal board, recently, was Gerald Edelman, who had played a leading role in the move to the Emirates from Arsenal Stadium. No one outside the Gunners’ magic circle seems to know quite why this happened, but plainly there had been a clash of views and wills with Fiszman.
Lady Nina has the shares because her husband, Sir Charles, is the grandson of Sir Bracewell Smdith who, as chairman and a City figure, materially helped the Gunners through their financial problems in the 1950s’ and after. He was also responsible for the sad and abrupt departure of the club’s inspirational playmaker, Jimmy Logie, incensed when Logie as Arsenal skipper, refused to shake hands with the somewhat notorious Russian referee Nicolai Latychev (he ludicrously refereed the so called fog farce against Moscow Dynamo at Tottenham in November 1945) at the end of a Highbury friendly against Moscow Spartak. Latychev, who’d actually went on to referee the 1962 World Cup final in Chile, having refused the Gunners a clear penalty.
Personally, I found Bracewell Smith, telephonically at least, a pompous ass. Jack Kelsey, Arsenal’s fine Welsh keeper of the time, once told me, “He comes down to the dressing rooms now before a game and gives us advice; silly little things like. ‘Pass to a man’”
Hell, as we know, hath no fury like a woman scorned and Fiszman may find he’s been dicing with death. Whether Gazidis can overcome his inexperience of English football will now have to be seen. On the face of it, Lady Nina seems to have had a case.
***************
Watching Liverpool draw last Sunday against 10 men Arsenal at the Emirates, it was hard to understand the Liverpool tactics. Plainly devised from his home by the convalescing Rafa Benitez, though it was the likeable Sammy Lee who sat in the managerial dug out. Leaving Robbie Keane all on his own even when the expulsion of Arsenal’s Adebayor reduced them to 10 men made scant sense. Kuyt could so easily have been moved up.
You felt that Liverpool and Benitez, who has never seemed much of a tactician to me, hardly deserved the dramatic goal Keane scored. A long ball affair, which would no doubt have gladdened the heart of the egregious Charlie Hughes, who simplistic theories so poisoned the wells of the FA coaching scheme. But quite apart from being a tribute to Keane’s electric pace and potent finishing, a supreme half volley, it also cast bleak light on the ponderous inadequacies of the Arsenal central defenders, William Gallas and Djouro, simply too slow to catch up with him.
Talking of pace, Arsenal remain seriously handicapped by the wretchedly unfortunate injury and consequent absence from the right flank of the dynamic Theo Walcott. Denilson cannot do that job; he is not a flank player and it is hardly his fault that he hasn’t the same electric turn of speed.
Meanwhile, what of the use or misuse which Liverpool made of Steven Gerrard? Absurd to have him floating about “in the hole,” where he is neither fish nor fowl, rather than put him where he should be – and where the misguided Benitez so often does not put him – that is to say, in the centre of midfield, where he can come to powerfully and influentially meet the ball.
***************
23/12/08
Visit our ever-improving Football Centre, where we've got line-ups, text feeds, previews, offers and over 5,000 markets. Click here!
Turmoil at the Emirates. Not on the field, whatever the controversy over Emmanuel Adebayor’s expulsion last Sunday, but off it. In the boardroom. Exit involuntarily Lady Nina Bracewell Smith with her 15.9% of shares, estimated to be worth some £75,000,000.
Leaving the club and its directors plainly vulnerable to take over, were the Uzbek pluticrat Alisher Usmanov prepared to buy them; which at present he says he is not. Just as Lady Nina says she is not going to sell. Meanwhile, there is even rumour that a Middle Eastern syndicate could buy up the club. Lady Nina was bitterly upset at her dismissal. The reason appears to have been a disagreement with the main man the former diamond millionaire Danny Fiszman, over the recent appointment (much delayed) of a chief executive in the shape of one Ivan Gazidis, an Englishman who has been working at executive level in American soccer. It seems strange that Fiszman and Lady Nina could not agree to differ, but there we are. Abrupt exits from the Arsenal board have in recent times become a frequent phenomenon.
Out above all went David Dein, the chief mover and shaker, who had made his second vast profit when selling what remained of his shares to Fiszman himself. The word was that Dein wanted to bring the American billionaire and sports franchise holder Stank Kroenker on the board, where in fact he has now been installed with his 24% of the shares. It was also suggested that Dein was at odds with Fiszman and his allies over the siting of the new stadium, which he’d have preferred to see at Kings Cross rather than just across the road from the hallowed old Arsenal stadium.
Dein it was who then allied himself with Usmanov and it did seem possible that the Uzbek, who owns 24% of the shares while Fiszman, now living abroad, owns 24.1%. You could envisage Usmanov with his Red and White holdings moving in and bringing back Dein. In fact Dein has withdrawn from the company and Usmanov insists he doesn’t want to take over. Which by the laws of the financial world he would have to bid for, were he to acquire as many as 29% of the shares.
As for the chairman, Peter Hill-Wood, whose family have been crucially and influentially involved with the club since the era of Sir Samuel Hill-Wood in the 1920s, he often makes on record declarations, such as, unfortunately, his assertion when Kroenke came into the frame that he wasn’t the type of person Arsenal wanted. Followed by the humiliating sequel of Hill-Wood flying to America to beg Kroenke to join the board. The truth is, tradition or no tradition, Hill-Wood effectively if unwittingly signed away his powers when he sold his Arsenal shares to Dein for some £290,000, declaring at the time that they were effectively a dead letter. So they were then, but when the laws changed, there was Dein with a virtually controlling share, which had suddenly been activated.
Also forced off the Arsenal board, recently, was Gerald Edelman, who had played a leading role in the move to the Emirates from Arsenal Stadium. No one outside the Gunners’ magic circle seems to know quite why this happened, but plainly there had been a clash of views and wills with Fiszman.
Lady Nina has the shares because her husband, Sir Charles, is the grandson of Sir Bracewell Smdith who, as chairman and a City figure, materially helped the Gunners through their financial problems in the 1950s’ and after. He was also responsible for the sad and abrupt departure of the club’s inspirational playmaker, Jimmy Logie, incensed when Logie as Arsenal skipper, refused to shake hands with the somewhat notorious Russian referee Nicolai Latychev (he ludicrously refereed the so called fog farce against Moscow Dynamo at Tottenham in November 1945) at the end of a Highbury friendly against Moscow Spartak. Latychev, who’d actually went on to referee the 1962 World Cup final in Chile, having refused the Gunners a clear penalty.
Personally, I found Bracewell Smith, telephonically at least, a pompous ass. Jack Kelsey, Arsenal’s fine Welsh keeper of the time, once told me, “He comes down to the dressing rooms now before a game and gives us advice; silly little things like. ‘Pass to a man’”
Hell, as we know, hath no fury like a woman scorned and Fiszman may find he’s been dicing with death. Whether Gazidis can overcome his inexperience of English football will now have to be seen. On the face of it, Lady Nina seems to have had a case.
***************
Watching Liverpool draw last Sunday against 10 men Arsenal at the Emirates, it was hard to understand the Liverpool tactics. Plainly devised from his home by the convalescing Rafa Benitez, though it was the likeable Sammy Lee who sat in the managerial dug out. Leaving Robbie Keane all on his own even when the expulsion of Arsenal’s Adebayor reduced them to 10 men made scant sense. Kuyt could so easily have been moved up.
You felt that Liverpool and Benitez, who has never seemed much of a tactician to me, hardly deserved the dramatic goal Keane scored. A long ball affair, which would no doubt have gladdened the heart of the egregious Charlie Hughes, who simplistic theories so poisoned the wells of the FA coaching scheme. But quite apart from being a tribute to Keane’s electric pace and potent finishing, a supreme half volley, it also cast bleak light on the ponderous inadequacies of the Arsenal central defenders, William Gallas and Djouro, simply too slow to catch up with him.
Talking of pace, Arsenal remain seriously handicapped by the wretchedly unfortunate injury and consequent absence from the right flank of the dynamic Theo Walcott. Denilson cannot do that job; he is not a flank player and it is hardly his fault that he hasn’t the same electric turn of speed.
Meanwhile, what of the use or misuse which Liverpool made of Steven Gerrard? Absurd to have him floating about “in the hole,” where he is neither fish nor fowl, rather than put him where he should be – and where the misguided Benitez so often does not put him – that is to say, in the centre of midfield, where he can come to powerfully and influentially meet the ball.
***************