Revealed! Inside the Arsenal bid to buy Liverpool's Luis Suarez, with owner Stan Kroenke

By John Cross, 26 Sep 2013 

Gunners' US supremo on the summer transfer saga that saw Londoners controversially bid £40m plus a pound for Kop star

Arsenal have held high-level “good natured” talks with Liverpool since the Luis Suarez transfer saga.

Liverpool owner John W Henry famously tweeted: “What do you think they’re smoking over there at the Emirates?” after the Gunners made a £40,000,001 bid for Kop striker Suarez in the summer.

Liverpool stuck to their guns over not selling Suarez

Arsenal’s majority shareholder Stan Kroenke, who is friends with Henry through their mutual interest in American sport, revealed they have met and remain on good terms.
“We were at a media conference in Sun Valley this summer, both of us were there,” said Kroenke. “Before I was getting there - and we have a lot of friends in common and I know John pretty well - people were already texting me, ‘John says you can have Suarez.’
“Of course, John hadn’t said anything. They were just trying to get it all going. It was good-natured ribbing.

“Look, Arsene had a view, our team had a view, they had a view. Their view was he wasn’t going anywhere. I never saw them waver from it.
“I guess, at some level, there is a number that gets anybody out of anywhere but there was nothing within the realm of what we knew about that could have got him out of there. There were people over there that were saying if he left, there was nothing left.
“If those people believed that and John thought they believed that, it is a real problem because then it’s like, 'Can you get him to play?' That would be very difficult even at whatever number you could get.”

 

Kroenke on... getting the football bug

Billionaire Stan Kroenke admits he has become totally “wrapped up” in Arsenal.
Kroenke says the Gunners' style of play has got him hooked and that when a result goes badly his weekend can be ruined.
“Maybe I shouldn’t say it, but I’ve only got so much in me,” said Kroenke. “I get too wrapped up in it. I don’t want to ruin my life over it. But you get wrapped up in it, whether they win or they lose. But I try not to.
“Part of the problem of being involved is that you get drawn in so much it can ruin your day, ruin your weekend. It sticks with you. You try to be more even about it - I take my mother’s advice and try to strike a good balance.
“I liked the way they play, the passing, the ball movement, it’s beautiful to watch. It’s exciting.
“Basketball is where I spent a lot of my youth. I could shoot the ball, but the best feeling in basketball is when one of your teammates makes a great pass.
“The whole team gets excited, and the way they play is fascinating to watch. It’s boom, boom, boom and someone has got space and they open it up. It’s fun.”

Kroenke on... learning from America

Stan Kroenke believes English football can learn a lot from sport in his American homeland.
Kroenke, whose sporting empire includes the NFL's St Louis Rams and professional basketball and ice-hockey teams, also believes football fans should be happy when their club is commercially and financially strong.
"I'm not just saying it and this is not a commentary on the American system," he said. "The American system is just more developed commercially. The sponsorship side, the television side.
"They have progressed in terms of the league's rules and efforts to make them healthy.
"I say to my friends, 'People should want a healthy commercial club.' That's what they should want. If I was a fan, and I've always said this, that would be extremely high on my list.
"I'm not saying it's more important than anything - but, man, is it important that you get healthy revenues and a healthy system because that, generally, will have a correlation with the success of the club."
Kroenke also explained some of the reasons behind his decision in choosing to buy into Arsenal.

 Kroenke says there is a lot English football can learn

 He said: "We were building a soccer-specific stadium in Denver, and I thought - personally, it was my initiative if you like - 'If we're getting taps about buying clubs...' We formed a committee to study this and we all came to the same conclusion: Arsenal would be a great acquisition.

"That's what started our interest in Arsenal. We followed it through for a number of years with shares."
Kroenke also dismissed any fears that he was in it for the money, as is the suspicion with foreign owners.
He says winning is always his first priority, and also believes sport should have a special place in society.
"Absolutely. That's why you get involved," said Kroenke. "There's a lot of reasons why you get involved. I've talked about this a lot down the years. I love sport. When I couldn't play at the highest level, I always had a dream to own a team.
"I like sports, I like the value it teaches our youth. Sport at its best is this. It has to do with the values type of approach - how do you learn as a young person?
"Sport is a really interesting place to learn. I've taught my children through it. You can learn a lot. In a certain position as a child, it brings out certain challenges, in a different way, with more immediacy.
"I like the idea of fitness, a healthy society - you can read all sorts of studies about raising the level of fitness and that [then] raising levels intellectually. Those kind of things. That's society as a whole.
"Sport, at its best, promotes those sort of things. In all of the leagues we're involved in, we spend lots of time and money, working to connect with the youth. We're doing the same at Arsenal.
"We spend money on youth development, community outreach, different things we try to do. That all appeals to me a lot. I like to be involved in that.
"I watched my own children and see them do something that all their team-mates thought was brilliant and all of a sudden they are viewed differently, they stand a bit taller."