Spotify co-founder Tweet no more than attention seeking

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Following the European Super League debacle, Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek tweeted that “If KSE would like to sell Arsenal I’d be happy to throw my hat in the ring”.

Daniel Ek will not be buying Arsenal – at least not on his own.

The tweet was no more than a bit of PR. Some attention seeking. And we have seen it before with other billionaires tweeting, writing open letters, etc.

Lets work through the maths.

In 2018 Stan Kroenke bought out Alisher Usmanov’s 30% share in Arsenal for £550million. This would value Arsenal at around £1.83bn – or $2.5bn.

Now a few will say “some internet website has valued Arsenal at less than £1bn”, whether it be Forbes or some blog.

These values are what that individual outlet value Arsenal at as a business. Not how much it would cost for someone to buy them.

Just because a company might have an internet value of a certain price, does not mean that is their sale price. This is not the supermarket where a price of milk is listed on the shelf and as long as you have your 89p you can buy it.

It is more akin to owning a house.

Now Zoopla value my house at around £450,000. But that does not mean that if someone knocks on my door with and offers me £450k, I would have to sell it.

The buyer would have to meet my price. My value. Not Zoopla’s.

Now if they offered me £550k, I would think about it.

And it is the same situation with Arsenal.

KSE are the sole share holders. Ek or any other person would have to meet Kroenke’s valuation on the club. Not Forbes, etc.

So when buying out Usmanov, Kroenke showed his hand slightly.

The price he paid for it showed what he valued the club at back in 2018.

“But Arsenal have got worse since 2018 so the price would have gone down”. No.

Remember, it is Kroenke’s value of the club that is important.

My best guess is that it would take an offer around $3bn for Kroenke to consider cashing out. This would generate a nice profit on his investment.

“So Ek has $4.7bn. He could easily afford to buy Arsenal”. No.

There is a difference between net worth and available capital.

Ek’s net worth is almost wholly influenced to the share price of Spotify.

“ Spotify is worth $58bn and Ek owns Spotify ”. No.

Ek does not own Spotify . He was a co-founder and only has around 10.3% of the companies shares. This puts his net worth at $4.5bn.

So for Ek to buy Arsenal outright on his own he would either:

1) Have to sell his Spotify shares to free up capital

2) Take out a loan using his Spotify shares as leverage

Realistically, neither of these two are going to happen. And if they somehow did, Ek is not sitting on billions more that he can then pump into the club.

The only chance Ek has of buying Arsenal is to form a consortium.

A group of people coming together, setting up an investment fund to purchase Arsenal. But is this likely? Not very.

So lets not spend anymore time discussing a bored billionaire sticking out a tweet saying he would like to buy something he can not afford.

I would like to buy a Ferrari.

Keenos

It has been 4810 days and we are still laughing at Tottenham

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4810 days. That is a long time. Well over a decade. And it is how long it has been since Tottenham last won a trophy.

With them out of the FA Cup, out of Europe, abd mid-table in league, they will not get another chance of a trophy until they have passed through 5,000 days.

In the last 4810 days:

  • We have had a global economic crash
  • Iron Man was released – the first of 23 films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe
  • Spotify was launched
  • We have had 4 American presidents
  • Bitcoin was created
  • Swine flu, MERs, Ebola, Zika, Covid19
  • Michael Jackson has died
  • Instagram was launched
  • One Direction were formed
  • Prince William married Kate Middleton, and had 3 kids
  • Osama Bin Laden was killed
  • London hosted the Olympics
  • ISIS began their offensive northern Iraq
  • Arsenal won the FA Cup. And then another 3
  • Scotland voted to remain in the UK
  • One World Trade Centre opened
  • The PS4 was launched. And the PS5
  • Sepp Blatter resigned following a corruption scandal which nearly bought down FIFA
  • United States withdrew troops from Afghanistan
  • The UK voted to leave the EU. And 4 years later left

But the year ends in 1. It was their year.

Just like it was their year in 2011 when they won nothing. And 2001 when they won nothing.

Maybe it is time for the media to put that cliche to bed? Tottenham don’t win things when the year ends in 1 anymore. And they don’t win things when the year ends in any other number either.

Yaya Sanogo has won more in England than Harry Kane. And that sums it all up.

Keenos

Match Report: Arsenal 0 – 1 Everton

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Arsenal (0) 0 Everton (0) 1

Premier League

Emirates Stadium, Drayton Park, London N5 1BU

Friday, 23rd April 2021. Kick-off time: 8.00pm

(4-2-3-1) Bernd Leno; Calum Chambers, Rob Holding, Pablo Marí, Granit Xhaka; Thomas Partey, Dani Ceballos; Nicolas Pépé, Emile Smith-Rowe, Bukayo Saka; Eddie Nketiah.

Substitutes: Hector Bellerin, Gabriel Magalhães, Martin Ødegaard, Willian Borges da Silva, Cédric Soares, Reiss Nelson, Mohamed Elneny, Mat Ryan, Gabriel Martinelli.

Yellow Cards: Thomas Partey

Arsenal Possession Percentage: 59%

Referee: Jonathan Moss

Assistant Referees: Marc Perry, Dan Robathan

Fourth Official: Graham Scott

VAR Team at Stockley Park: VAR David Coote; AVAR Stuart Burt

Attendance: A maximum of 300 attendees due to UK government coronavirus restrictions

For tonight’s St. George’s Day match here at the Emirates, we are without both of our first-choice forwards, Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, due to injury and illness respectively; of course Kieran Tierney and David Luiz are also unavailable because of injury too, and Martin Ødegaard is in light training after an ankle problem and will be assessed by the coaching team just before kick-off. Let’s go!

We began the match quite energetically, applying pressure on the visitors’ goal, winning a corner within two minutes of the start, which although went nowhere, the intent was there. Everton’s best chance in the early part of the game came from a free-kick, which Gylfi Sigurdsson took, only for Rob Holding to easily neutralise the threat, by diverting the ball safely back to Bernd Leno. The two sides were looking fairly even, with their respective defenders skillfully cutting out any threat to score from either sets of strikers. Bukayo Saka was unlucky not to score when the ball flew into the Everton penalty area, but unfortunately Jordan Pickford made an easy save at close range from our young striker. At this moment in the game, the big players on both sides are lacklustre, it’s becoming fairly obvious that the match needs a goal to liven it up quickly, and Thomas Partey could just be the man to unlock the Toffees’ defence tonight. However, Bernd Leno made a fantatsic save from Richarlison at close range, and at the other end, a very quick smash’n’grab movement from us looked promising, but it petered out into nothing. Six minutes before the break, a twenty-yard Gylfi Sigurdsson free-kick bounced off the bar with Bernd Leno beaten, and just before half-time, Emile Smith-Rowe was unlucky not to gain control of the ball in the Everton penalty area; if the ball had not run away for him, we may well have gone into half-time in the lead, but it was honours even at the break.

No changes for the team line-up for the second half, and it started in the same manner as the first ended, with plenty of pressure on both goals but to no avail. Everton had the better chances of the two teams out there, with one or two shots going close by Bernd Leno’s goal. We were granted a penalty six minutes into the second half, but sadly it was cancelled out by VAR because Nicolas Pépé was deemed to be offside in the build-up, and a couple of minutes’ later, Everton’s penalty appeal was cancelled out by VAR also. And so it goes. Just before the hour mark, we nearly had a classic own-goal situation when Calum Chambers put in a low cross from the right flank, Mason Holgate took a massive swing at it, but it flew off the outside of his boot and into the side-netting. Nearly. After a free-kick on the left, when Nicolas Pépé was chopped to the ground by Mason Holgate (who was booked for his trouble), Rob Holding’s subsequent shot fired over the bar from close range; Dani Ceballos took a quick, strong shot from outside the box which was parried by Jordan Pickford for an Arsenal corner, which was cleared by the Everton defence. With about a quarter of an hour of the match remaining, in an effort to liven up proceedings, Nicolas Pépé and Eddie Nketiah were replaced by Martin Ødegaard and Gabriel Martinelli. A minute or so later, the visitors took the lead when Richarlison cut in from the right flank, crossed the ball, and somehow the ball bounced off the inside of Bernd Leno’s leg and into the net. Now we were chasing the game, and with decent chances very few and far between, it became a big problem for our chaps. Calum Chambers was replaced by Willian with eight minutes of the game remaining, and despite having fresh legs out there, it did not appear to make a whole lot of difference at all. With the game running down, we made a last gasp attack on the Everton goal, but we were unable to breeak down their defence adequately.enough to score the equalising goal. Twice in less than a minute, Jordan Pickford kept his side in the game, but the harder we tried, the more we got nowhere, and when referee Jonathan Moss blew the final whistle, it was a massive sense of disappointment on our behalf.

The most exciting thing about tonight was the thousand or so Arsenal supporters outside the ground protesting over the Super League debacle earlier in the week. This match was turgid, boring and pointless, and how can it be? With fifty-nine per cent posession, fourteen shots on goal (three on target), how did we end up with this result this evening? With Villareal on the horizon next Thursday, we had truly better pull our collective socks up. Or else.

Remember everyone, keep the faith, get behind the team and the manager, as this season is going to be crucial for our future success in all competitions. Stick with the winners. Our next match: Villareal at Estadio de la Cerámica on Thursday, 29th April at 8.00pm(Europa League). Victoria Concordia Crescit.

Steve

Too Dearly Loved To Be Forgotten: Arsenal v Racing Club de Paris 1930-1962 by Steve Ingless (Rangemore Publications, ISBN 978-1-5272-0135-4) is now available on Amazon.