Africa’s richest man, Nigerian businessman Aliko Dangote, has reiterated his plans to buy Premier League club Arsenal.
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He added, “Maybe three to four years”.
Stan Kroenke, worth $7bn and the owner of the National Basketball Association’s Denver Nuggets, holds 67 per cent of Arsenal Holdings, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, and the club’s primary sponsor is Emirates, after which its home ground stadium is also named. The issue is that we have more challenging headwinds.
Nevertheless, that seemingly hasn’t deterred him from wanting to become the first African owner of a club in the Premier League, and he has now outlined his hopes and plan to complete a takeover of the Gunners in the not so distant future. I need to get those out the way first and start having tailwinds.
Dangote made his interest on Arsenal known previous year, but having been silent, many felt the dream had died. Then I’ll focus on this.’ Dangote told Bloomberg.
Since making his interest on Arsenal known previous year, many felt the dream had died. Uzbek-born Russian Federation billionaire Alisher Usmanov owns 30.04%, while the remaining shares are owned by members of the Arsenal Supporters Trust (AST). I’ve run a very successful business and I think I can also run a very successful team.
Speaking in May of a year ago, Dangote expressed similar sentiments. “Right now, with what we’re facing, over 20billion dollars of projects, I can not do both”.
Dangote explained why he can not push for an outright purchase of Arsenal at the moment.
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His company, the Dangote Group was established as a small trading firm in 1977 but is today a multi-trillion Naira conglomerate with many of its operations in Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, and Togo.
