Invincibles Henry, Bergkamp and Vieira look to join Spotify CEO Daniel Ek's bid to buy Arsenal
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Updated 26/04/2021 at 09:45 GMT
After revealing his interest in purchasing Arsenal from its current owners Kroenke Sports Enterprises, Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek has reportedly enlisted the help of three of the club's biggest names, Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp and Patrick Vieira to make the bid more popular. Of the three, Henry has been the most vocal in his criticism of the club's ownership.
Arsenal's Thierry Henry (2nd L) thanks teammate Fredrik Ljungberg (2nd R) for an assist leading to his second goal against Celta de Vigo as they are joined by Patrick Vieira (L) and Dennis Bergkamp during their Champions League first knockout stage second
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Spotify CEO Daniel Ek's bid to buy Arsenal from Stan Kroenke has received the backing of Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp and Patrick Vieira, according to the Daily Telegraph.
Arsenal's participation in the European Super League, sparked protests outside the Emirates last week, with fans demanding that Kroenke sell the club.
During the demonstrations Ek, the Swedish entrepreneur who founded the music streaming service revealed that he was a childhood Arsenal fan and would be interested in purchasing the north London side should the opportunity arise.
The 38-year-old is worth £3.4 billion according to Forbes and is set to make a formal offer to Kroenke, whose son Josh faced a hostile reception at a fans' forum last week.
Nevertheless during the call with supporters, the younger Kroenke insisted that "we have no intention of selling.”
In order to increase the pressure on the Kroenkes, he has brought in three club legends to make his bid more popular.
Dennis Bergkamp, Thierry Henry and Patrick Vieira have well in excess of 1000 appearances for Arsenal between them. Bergkamp and Vieira won three league titles with the club and Henry two. All three were part of the iconic Invincibles side in 2003-04, who won the Premier League without losing a game.
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Henry has signalled his opposition to the Kroenkes recently, telling the Telegraph at the weekend: "This club belongs to the fans, I love the club and I will support the club until I die, but I do not recognise my club and what happened just now, with them trying to join a league that would have been closed, makes no sense to me.
"They have been running the club like a company, not a football club, and they showed their hand. Maybe it’s a lack of understanding of the core football values and maybe the money was too big of a temptation. But whatever it was, they got it wrong. Badly wrong.”
Ek founded Spotify in Stockholm in 2006 and its legal streaming service was launched in 2008. It has a reported 345 million active users and is valued at $51.9 billion.
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