Arsenal majority shareholder Stan Kroenke has spoken about sports ownership, saying clubs must also be "real industries and real businesses," according to Mattias Karen of ESPN. Kroenke, nicknamed "Silent Stan" by Arsenal fans because of his "failure to publicly address the club's financial policies," said that owners "must have some sort of reality involved" when it comes to the business side of running a club. Kroenke: "I think the best owners in sports to me are the guys who sort of watch both sides a bit. Because if you don't have a good business you can't afford to go out and get players, unless you just want to rely on other sources of income. Fortunately here in the U.S. for the most part I see some rational thought put into that side so that they become real industries and real businesses." Wealthy owners "pouring money into European football teams can sometimes end up hurting the clubs." Kroenke added, "Over there it was sort of like, 'Well we've got guys from the Middle East, the oil price is over a hundred bucks [a barrel], they can spend anything they want.' The problem I saw with all that is that those people can lose interest ... I said, what happens when the Middle Eastern family [loses] interest and they decide to go home? I said what would really happen in those situations is that the fans get hurt. Because the players get picked up [by other teams] and paid if they're good, and the front office gets other jobs" (ESPN, 3/12).
