Paul Wallace London
AFRICA’S richest man, Aliko Dangote, still wanted to buy English Premier League soccer team Arsenal even after he was rebuffed by its owners in 2010, he said.
Nigeria’s Dangote, an Arsenal fan worth $15.7 billion (R189bn), according to the Bloomberg Billionaires index, discussed buying a stake in the club five years ago before talks with the owners fell through, he said.
Since then his wealth has grown more than sevenfold.
“I still hope, one day at the right price, that I’ll buy the team,” said Dangote.
“I might buy it, not at a ridiculous price but a price that the owners won’t want to resist. I know my strategy.”
Arsenal is one of England’s most successful clubs, having won 13 top-flight league titles in the country, the most after Manchester United and Liverpool. Arsenal Holdings, the owner, trades on the ICAP Securities & Derivatives Exchange and is valued at £988 million (R18bn).
A successful bid would make Dangote the first African owner of a club in a league where billionaires including Russia’s Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea, and Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan, who controls Manchester City, have acquired teams.
Stan Kroenke, worth $5.6bn and owner of the National Football League’s St Louis Rams, holds 67 percent of Arsenal. Red & White Sec, controlled by Uzbek billionaire Alisher Usmanov and Farhad Moshiri, owns 30 percent.
Dan Tolhurst, a spokesman for the London-based club, declined to comment as did Rollo Head, a spokesman for Usmanov in London. Tomago Collins, a spokesman for Kroenke in Denver, did not immediately respond to e-mails requesting comment.
Dangote has interests in sugar and flour and controls Dangote Cement, Nigeria’s biggest publicly traded firm. He is investing $11bn in a 650 000 barrel-a-day oil refinery near Lagos and as much as $2.5bn in gas pipelines running to the city from Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger River delta region.
His wealth has fallen by $2.7bn this year, the sixth-most globally, according to the Billionaires index. Dangote, who ranks 55th on the index, said he was too busy with existing projects to mount a bid now.
“We have $16bn worth of investments in the next few years,” he said.
“Right now I want to take my own business to a certain level. Once I finish on that trajectory, then maybe an offer will follow.”
Most English Premier League matches are broadcast live in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, by Supersport.
Arsenal won the FA Cup, England’s main knockout tournament, last year, its first major trophy since 2005, and is in the final of the same tournament this year.
Over the last decade London rivals Chelsea have won the English league four times as well as the European Champions League and several other trophies.
Arsene Wenger, who has managed Arsenal since 1996, has been criticised by fans including Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame for the team’s limited success in the last decade. Dangote said he was often too nervous to watch their games.
The team beat Hull 3-1 on Monday with two goals from Chilean striker Alexis Sanchez.
While Wenger has managed the club well from a financial standpoint, he “needs to change his style a bit”, said Dangote. “They need new direction.” – Bloomberg