The ownership of Arsenal could be up for grabs again after a boardroom row effectively ended the board’s lockdown agreement under which directors agreed in 2007 to sell shares to each other. The board ousted long-standing director Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith leaving her free to sell her stake to the club’s biggest shareholder, Russian steel magnate Alisher Usmanov. Bracewell-Smith has been marginalised in recent years and didn’t get her candidate for chief executive appointed.
The ownership of Arsenal could be up for grabs again after a boardroom row effectively ended the board’s lockdown agreement under which directors agreed in 2007 to sell shares to each other. The board ousted long-standing director Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith leaving her free to sell her stake to the club’s biggest shareholder, Russian steel magnate Alisher Usmanov. Bracewell-Smith has been marginalised in recent years and didn’t get her candidate for chief executive appointed. She was also unhappy about being sidelined about a commercial deal in India, despite bringing the proposition and contacts to the table. Personality clashes are said to have boiled over at last Thursday’s board meeting after mounting friction between Lady Nina and other board members. The family of Lady Nina’s husband has had a 70-year connection with the club. Richard Carr, related to her by marriage and a 4.4 per cent shareholder, is resigning from the board but remains a director of the club. The vehicle of Mr Usmanov and his business partner Farhad Moshiri, Red and White Holdings, said, ‘We are watching developments with interest.’