Stan Kroenke continues to edge closer to a takeover of Arsenal. He is now at a 29.6% shareholding, just shy of the 29.9% that by city rules would trigger a takeover bid. The Arsenal Supporters’ Trust (AST) sent out a press release about the news today, which stated that they were opposed to a takeover by Kroenke (and also mentioned they did not believe one was imminent anyway).

But this isn’t just a case of knee jerk anti-Americanism or supporter belligerence. Members of the Arsenal Supporters Trust (AST) travelled to the U.S. to meet with Kroenke when he began seriously upping his share of the club some time ago, and were impressed by the billionaire and his business.

Indeed, the AST successfully called for Kroenke to be added to Arsenal’s board, and stated in a press release yesterday that “The AST has a good relationship with both Stan Kroenke and members of his team at Kroenke Sports Enterprises (KSE). We have stressed to them the importance of custodianship and that the club will be stronger if it has supporters directly involved in its ownership model. While we cannot vouch for their future actions we are encouraged that they have said they see the AST having an important role to play at Arsenal.”

Compared to the other apparent alternative, slimy Georgian Alisher Usmanov, Kroenke has had the gleam of the white horse about him for Arsenal supporters concerned about the future as an alternate major investor.

But sensibly, the Trust do not see Kroenke as a saviour, and instead believe the club should continue its tradition of a “plurality of ownership”, pointing out that Arsenal do not need a new owner taking over and indebting the club to purchase it, as has happened at Manchester United and Liverpool: “Two red lines that cannot be crossed,” the AST press release continues,  “are the use of debt secured on the club’s assets to fund a takeover and an ownership structure which excludes small shareholders.”

It of course belongs to the latter, Uzbeki champions Bunyodkor, who obviously modelled their badge after the Spanish giants. And the connections do not end there.

As reported in a brilliant article in today’s Observer by Kevin O’Flynn, Bunyodkor were the team behind last summer’s audacious attempt to woo Eto’o by offering him $25m to play for a couple of months and who ended up with former Barca-star Rivaldo instead.

Beyond these surface dealings, the connections between this murkily financed new Super Club in Uzbekistan and Barcelona appear to be substantial, and cast a shadow on Barcelona’s global reputation for unusual integrity.

As O’Flynn explains,

Four years ago Bunyodkor did not exist. They won promotion from the amateur second division at the first attempt, finished runners-up in cup and league next time out, and in their third season won the double, with a run to the semi-finals of the Asian Champions League to boot. They have a former World Cup winner in the team, alongside the Asian footballer of the year. Now they are getting serious.

Bunyodkor are building a new $150m stadium, despite the fact that their current 15,000-capacity home, built in a few months, is less than a year old. A friendly against Barcelona, whose president, Joan Laporta, flew in to lay the first brick last August, will mark the official opening of their new home this summer.

Barcelona have a formal “cooperation contract” with Bunyodkor, and that friendly in Uzbekistan is apparently going to be worth $5M to the Spanish club.

Yet disturbingly, it seems that that Bunyodkor’s purpose in life is to be the PR vehicle for dictator Ismail Karimov’s daughter Gulnara and her serious political ambitions to succeed her father, who has ruled Uzbekistan for over two decades with a bloody fist. The money Barcelona are taking has an ugly origin.

Given the well-known evidence of human rights abuse in Uzbekistan under Karimov (a UN visit in 2002 concluded torture was “systemic”), it seems a little unwise that a team so closely linked to Unicef such as Barcelona would also want to be connected to Bunyodkor.

As Britain’s former Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray told O’Flynn, “It would be like linking up with Adolf Hitler to promote a Berlin team in the 1930s – it really is astonishing even in the money-mad world of football to be quite that blind to morality.”

Further digging reveals even closer connections between Bunyodkor and Barcelona. It has been reported that Gulnara Karimova’s company Zeromax (owners of Bunyodkor) are in talks to purchase Mallorca FC, with Barcelona’s President “an intermediary in these talks.”

You might be surprised that we haven’t yet had a mention of the best known Uzbeki powerbroker in football, the obese oligrach Alisher Usmanov (“thug, criminal, racketeer, heroin trafficker and alleged rapist”) who once threatened to sue this blog and is still strengthening his takeover attempt at Arsenal through Red and White holdings. Rye concludes (apparently based on a question asked at an art opening) that Usmanov is not behind the club, and does not know who his — unlike everybody else.

Alisher Usmanov

Of course, Usmanov was being characteristically disingenuous, given his known closeness to the Karimovs.  It was Usmanov and Gulnara Karimova who, according to Murray in his book Murder In Samarkland, negotiated Uzbekistan’s historically huge oil and gas development contract, awarded in 2005 to Usmanov’s Russian company Gazprom and which tilted the country away from the U.S. and back to Russia and Usmanov’s friend Vladimir Putin. The deal was sealed by a bribe to Gulnara worth at least $88M to her, the book explains.

Karimova’s company Zeromax and Usmanov’s trading in commodities have also been linked since then. And Usmanov, according to Murray, is the preferred alternate candidate to succeed Karimov if his daughter does not win enough approval. One would be very surprised if his finger was not also in Bunyodkor’s pie or at least aware of its backers.

Gulnara is no innocent in the regime’s repression, as Murray reaffirmed again last year: “The cruel and rapacious Karimov family strengthen still further their grip on Uzbekistan’s command economy, and continue to siphon off the money of their people. Karimov’s daughter. Gulnara, is the family’s principal bagman.”

The backing of Bunyodkor by this despicable regime is blatant enough that Barcelona, a member-owned social club hailed in 2006 by investigative journalist David Conn as “embodying a more inspirational identity for a football club than being a private company owned by businessmen or an oligarch’s toy” should be ashamed of themselves.

Unicef’s association with Barcelona, who gave up space on their shirt to promote the charity, is based on this reputation and they are thus also tarnished when Barcelona parade for cash in Uzbekistan at a stadium built at the behest of a bloody regime’s leaders.

In a bizarre continuation of this murky simulacrum, Bunyodkur’s slogan on their English website is “Bunyodkur plays for the sake of FANS”. Just like Barcelona, right?

This has prompted Arsenal’s Managing Director, Keith Edelman, to again warn Usmanov off from a takeover attempt, though he accepted they may eventually have to invite him onto the board.

“[Usmanov's share purchase] has no impact on the business because the Board is totally agreed to a lockdown, no selling of shares, so the Board as a total entity is the largest shareholder with 45 per cent. That makes us bullet-proof.

“There are many examples of clubs who have been taken over and are not having as smooth a ride as first hoped for.

“Arsène [Wenger] has always said a board where there is no conflict or tensions helps the team because they are not distracted. It is important we continue that, we want there to be calm waters.”

The Arsenal Supporters’ Trust seems set to add their 3% share to the lockdown as well, with fans having been on the main opposed to Usmanov since news broke of his past, which included a six year prison stretch. F

ans of other teams Usmanov looked into buying, including their North London rivals Tottenham, should be glad they don’t have this grotesque bogeyman trying to muscle his way in.

There’s still a fuss when an Usmanov or a Glazer bulldozes his way in. But what’s remarkable is how many billionares now buy into English football (and not even just in the Premiership) with few eyebrows even being raised any more. Take a look at the list of the richest after the jump.

Some of those names we are very familiar with; some seem obscure. I knew Tottenham’s Joe Lewis, a caterer who lives in the Bahamas, was very, very rich, but I didn’t know he was in Abramovich territory, for example.

All this investment is no wonder, of course, when even the Coca-Cola Championship and Carling Cup rights can be for over sold for $500 million. The exploding value of British football isn’t news, but it still manages to blow my mind from time to time.

Tomorrow, Arsenal take on Manchester United in the match of the season so far. United fans famously stood up to the takeover by Malcolm Glazer, and the big fixture is being seen by some Arsenal fans as a chance to take a stand of their own on Alisher Usmanov, seen by many as a disreputable prospective owner.

Arsenal’s RedAction group are planning a march tomorrow to “send a message” on the issue.

The protests on the day are so that the world knows how Arsenal fans feel about such changes to our club. It won’t stop Usmanov hoovering up shares but it will send a message to him, to Dein, to AFC shareholders and to the media.

We’ll report back when we find out how the protest goes, and it’ll be interesting to see how (if at all) the media reports on it, given it’s generally rolled over for Usmanov so far.

Jeremy Corbyn: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will publish reports received from British embassies relating to Alisher Usmanov. [158765]

Mr. Jim Murphy: Such information would constitute personal data. A request for personal information brings into play the relevant legislative provisions on data release by the Government and would require the consent of the individual concerned.

and

Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay asked Her Majesty’s Government:

Whether Mr Alisher Usmanov holds British citizenship, whether honorary or not; and, if so, when and why it was granted. [HL5411]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord West of Spithead): It is the policy of the Border and Immigration Agency not to comment publicly on individual cases.

Given the government has not always followed these policies previously in other cases, Craig Murray asks “is New Labour supporting Usmanov in covering up his past?” Why might they do this? Well, Murray has an idea. “I wonder if Gallagher Holdings, or any of Usmanov’s other companies, will turn out to have made donations or “loans” to New Labour?”

Update: Spy Blog has some interesting commentary on this.

And it doesn’t say a lot for British journalism that this whole story has from the beginning to the present day been continually misrepresented in the mainstream press, especially when it has come out that eight prominent journalists flew on Usmanov’s private jet and stayed at a five star hotel in Moscow last week. Bloggerheads has the details, including commentary on the journalist’s reports on Usmanov’s “charm offensive”.

Nick Hornby was on Radio Five Live last week, luxuriating in Arsenal’s current success, built on Wenger’s long-term planning and asserting the only dark cloud on the horizon was Usmanov and Dein’s plans for the club. Maybe Alisher should offer him and other concerned Arsenal fans a luxurious stay in Moscow.