Journalist Daniel Harris has railed against the idiocy, questionable financial sources and foresight of the owners of Premier League clubs, ahead of the start of the new season.

The discussion came with the news that Arsenal's majority shareholder, Stan Kroenke, is looking to become the wholesale owner of the club in a deal that values the club at £1.8bn.

But Daniel is war-weary of having to write, and care, about the boardroom machinations at some of the Premier League's biggest clubs.

Arsenal

"Alisher Usmanov, who is someone who should have never have been allowed near a football club, is selling out to Stan Kroenke - who is someone who should never have been allowed near a football club. He is going to take Arsenal private, with no shareholders, and he is going to be able to do anything that he likes with this 'franchise', which is actually the heritage of people's lives, and we are going to see the same [as Manchester United] at Arsenal." 

Manchester United

"The day that the Glazers bought United, they left in a police van. They have taken all manner of abuse, they don't speak to supporters, they very rarely turn up at Old Trafford and they are not bothered by what supporters think of them. Because if they were, they would have been gone a long time ago. Fortunately, they are insulated from what supporters think because they are wherever they are, enjoying their money. I don't think they care at all about their reputation.

"The Glazers bought United because, relative to American sport, they realised United was undervalued. They saw lots of ways that they could very easily start increasing profit because they had done it in the United States."

Tottenham

"Daniel Levy's reputation is about making money for Joe Lewis and ENIC. It is not about what Tottenham win, because they don't win anything. But what they do is that they are a well-run club who are making money and are improving. That looks good for Daniel Levy - these guys are businessmen, they are not sportsmen. So their success is in their profit and loss sheets - it is in their accounts. It is not what is on the honours board at the club, because that is what players do, not what these guys do."

Manchester City

"City is the PR wing of a repressive oil regime. They need to win things. They don't need to just get in the top four because that is something different. The people who own City have an entirely different level of money - they are a state. So what they need to do is win things, and to do whatever it takes to win things. That is what you are seeing from City."

Chelsea

"What Chelsea did was they got a guy who no-one had heard of, but who knows people who keep getting bumped off. All of a sudden, people know how Roman Abramovich is. If Roman Abramovich suddenly disappears off the face of the earth, then people are actually going to notice that he's not there, which previously wasn't the case.

"He's now not investing in Chelsea in the way that he was before because he has probably achieved what his primary aim was in owning Chelsea."

So, we will leave it to Daniel to sum up:

"What we are actually seeing is the way that our football clubs - these century-old institutions - have been absolutely hammered by people with no interest in football whatsoever. The FA sat there and did nothing, the Premier League sat there and did nothing and the government sat there and did nothing."

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