Kroenke approved the Partey purchase on request of Arteta (who clearly sees the transfer as crucial to his team), and underwrote transfers/losses due to Covid : Gunners
I don’t really see that it changes the way anyone should view him, to be honest. Most people who criticize Kroenke have always had a bizarre and incorrect way of expressing it. He’s not here to milk the club for money regardless of how you might choose to misunderstand the two 3m payments KSE took years ago. He owns the club as a significant asset that is virtually guaranteed to grow in value with little or no investment. When you’re a billionaire who owns huge assets banks will give you dirt cheap financing, and that in turn is how you can afford to do things like self-finance $5b stadiums in LA. This isn’t using the club as a collateral, to be clear. It’s literally just being so massively wealthy that banks know you’re good for it.
Generally speaking the appeal of investing in sports team is that their value is heavily tied to the value of the sport as a whole and thus tends to go up regardless of how they perform on field. This is exceptionally true of American sports teams considering they exist in a closed system. European football is not a closed system, and the value of clubs is much more dependent on performing at a consistently high level. Arsenal have not done so, and are heavily dependent on matchday revenue, meaning our poor league position and the impact of the pandemic jeopardizes his investment. Underwriting transfers this window and covering the club’s losses doesn’t signal a change in the way Kroenke runs the club, it’s simply the obvious thing to do in order to maintain the value of his investment given our circumstances.
The real reason Kroenke should be criticized is because to make the most of a self-sustaining model you need to have competent executives in charge who maximize your resources, and instead KSE have appointed absolute fucking buffoons like Gazidis and Raul.
