Keep Arsenal English

Once again my club is on the front pages of the national newspapers for reasons that have nothing to do with football.

Former vice-chairman David Dein who was sacked in April has sold his shares in Arsenal for £75million to a Russian chap and then become chairman of the company, Red and White Holdings, set up for the shareholding.

Dein wanted the club to be taken over by the American Stan Kroenke because he believes that the club cannot compete unless there is a huge injection of cash - from a foreign buyer.

The Arsenal board has signed a memorandum agreeing not to sell until April 2008 at the earliest. Will they sell then? I hope not.

Do foreign buyers actually make any difference? Chelsea have won the premiership and the FA Cup twice each since they were bought by Roman Abramovich in 2003. It is generally agreed that the Russian oligarch has put money into the club.

On 6 February 2007 Liverpool were bought by two American businessmen, George Gillett and Tom Hicks. It is obviously too early to say if that purchase has had any positive effect on the Anfield club.

When Malcolm Glazier bought Manchester United on 12 May 2005, against the wishes of many fans, his supporters claimed that he would invest in the club. As far as I am aware that has not happened.

Back to Arsenal.

The board has invested hundreds of millions of pounds in the new Emirates Stadium. It is a long-term plan that won't see money recouped for several years. Why would they sell to a foreign businessman so that he can benefit from all their hard work? Unless he paid well over the odds, it would not make sense to them. If he did pay over the odds to compensate for future losses, it would not make sense to the business tycoon.

I hope that they don't.

The price of watching

This season I have twice visited the Emirates Stadium to see my beloved Arsenal. Each time the visit set me back £35 which works out at around £4.40 every 10 minutes or so.

The first time I went to Highbury it set me back £2.50 (well, actually it set my Dad back a fiver since he paid for the tickets). That's a rise of 1,300 per cent.

Today a report is published that says that the most expensive ticket at Arsenal this season costs £94 for "Category A games". That would be an increase of 3,660 per cent (if I had paid).

The report blames the phenomonal rise in watching sport on the building or development of stadia and exorbitant wages paid to players.

Here's a radical plan: cut the players' wages.

If no club paid £70,000 a week to often mediocre players and offered a good but resonable salary - say, £100,000 a year, then that would still enable them to have a very nice lifestyle. They would still be paid double or triple what the people on the terraces earn.

Will it happen? Will it 'eck as like!

How much 2: The costs have started rising already

I said that I would probably be posting several times on the spiralling costs of hosting the 2012 Olympics.

This could be a post that runs and runs.

As David Harrison writes in The Sunday Telegraph: “The bill for clearing businesses and residents from the London Olympics site has risen by £250million from the original official estimates – and the figure is expected to be even higher by the time the bulldozers arrive in July [2007].

“The cost of evicting hundreds of companies and residents has soared from £370million in a 2002 feasibility study to at least £620million – with dozens of businesses still to be compensated.

“The rise in relocation costs is in addition to the £900million bill increase announced in November by Tessa Jowell, the Secretary for Culture, Media and Sport, which included £400million for hiring a project management consortium.”

Why is it that nothing run by governments seems to run on time or to cost? This is our money that they are wasting. Ours - mine and yours. Who is accountable? No one. It is about time that governments were held to account like private companies and the minister in charge sacked if projects go over time and over budget.