Dangote to Buy Another Football Club if Kroenke Refuses to Sell Arsenal

• Dangote to Buy Another Football Club if Kroenke Refuses to Sell Arsenal

The richest man in Africa, Aliko Dangote, had said he will look to buy another football club if majority shareholder Stan Kroenke refuses to sell Arsenal.

The billionaire, who is a known football fan, has long said he wants to buy a football club in Premier League after the completion of his US$14 billion oil refinery in Lagos, Nigeria.

“By the time we’ve finished, we’ll be a $30bn company in terms of revenue,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg TV at the New Economy Forum in Singapore. “We’ll have an excess amount of cash to start playing around with.”

Stan Kroenke, 71, owns most of Arsenal shares after buying Alisher Usmanov’s 30 per cent stake last year in a deal that now put the club’s value at around £1.8 billion.

The deal was funded with a £557 million loan from Deutsche Bank AG. Kroenke, who also controls the National Football League’s Los Angeles Rams, currently worth $8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

“I’m very attached to Arsenal but if he won’t sell, I might have to change,” said Dangote, 61 years old and worth $11.1bn. “I’m very much a fan of football. I have to have a club. I don’t have to own Arsenal.”