Arsenal Chairman Peter Hill-Wood has repeated that the club's ownership will stay in the hands of those who have "Arsenal in their blood." He was addressing concerns from Arsenal supporters' groups that billionaire investors such as Denver Nuggets owner Stan Kroenke and controversial Uzbek-Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov, who between them control around 36 percent of Arsenal's shares, could take the club over.

"We will strive to maintain the custodianship of the club as it is," said Hill-Wood, who initially spurned Kroenke as an investor until the American turned comparatively respectable compared with the aggressively share-buying Usmanov. "We do not want control handed over to somebody who has not got Arsenal in their blood. Rest assured, we are not going to sell out to the first man who comes along."

The Hill-Wood and Bracewell-Smith families have been represented on the Arsenal board for three generations, around 90 and 70 years respectively. During that entire time they have been served tea and cucumber sandwiches on the lawn or in the winter lounge at exactly four o'clock every afternoon.

 

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