Africa’s wealthiest business mogul, Aliko Dangote, has explained why he no longer intends to purchase the English football club, Arsenal, which is valued at approximately $4 billion.
Speaking in an interview on Bloomberg TV in New York on Monday, Dangote stated that the opportunity to buy the club has passed.
He also mentioned that he does not have the excess liquidity to justify spending $4 billion on a football club solely for promotional purposes.
According to Dangote, he will continue to express his love and loyalty to Arsenal as one of their biggest fans. However, he explained that it no longer makes financial sense for him to invest such a significant amount of money in acquiring the club.
“I think that time has passed. The last time when we had this interview, I told you that as soon as I finished the refinery, I’m going to try and buy Arsenal.
“The issue is that you know, everything has gone up. The club is doing very well. Arsenal is doing very well. That time, Arsenal wasn’t doing really well. I think you know, I don’t have that kind of excess liquidity to go and buy a club for $4 billion dollars, so to speak, and use it just as a promotional something.
“What I will do is to continue to be the biggest of Arsenal. I watch their games everyday. I will remain a major supporter of Arsenal. But I think it will make sense today to buy Arsenal,” Dangote said.
Arsenal or Completion of Dangote Refinery
In addition, Nigeria’s richest man explained that he had to choose between completing the $20 billion Dangote refinery or spending $2 billion to acquire the football club.
He ultimately decided to focus on finishing the refinery, a legacy project that many believed to be an impossible feat.
While he expressed some regret over not purchasing the club at the time, Dangote emphasized that investing in the refinery was the best possible decision.
“I regret not buying Arsenal before. But my money was needed in completing my projects than buying Arsenal. I would have bought it for $2 billion.
“But I wouldn’t have been able to finish my project. The choices was to either finish my projects or go and buy Arsenal. I think the best decision was to go and complete our refineries which a lot of people didn’t believe it was going to be completed,” Dangote added.
What you should know
In 2020, Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, expressed interest in acquiring the English football club, Arsenal FC, for the sum of $2 billion.
Dangote, an open supporter of the club, said he would love to take over ownership of majority shares of the struggling club, which had led to much disgruntlement among fans.
Dangote was not the only businessman that had shown interest in acquiring the football club.
In 2022, Spotify founder Daniel Ek launched a high-profile takeover bid which was later abruptly turned down.
If the deal had been finalized between Dangote and the club, he would have been the first and only Nigerian businessman to own an English football club.
