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£324m Stan Kroenke cash injection confirmed by Arsenal as Man City case ‘eats into’ PSR budget

Adam Williams

Thu 27 February 2025 17:45, UK

Since Stan Kroenke’s took 100 per cent control of Arsenal in 2018, the Gunners have not recorded a single year of profit. In total, they have lost almost £350m in the last seven years.

However, anyone who works in football finance or accountancy will tell you that profit is a useful fiction that is not an actual measure of the cash flow in and out of the business.

Instead, Arsenal’s financial losses are largely attributed to non-cash expenses such as amortisation – how clubs account for transfer fees over a set period – and depreciation.

EBTIDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) is generally considered a better way to assess a company’s operating performance.

Arsenal’s EBITDA in 2023-24 was £138m, as confirmed in their most recent set of accounts. When every club has released its figures for the season, that will probably be the highest in the Premier League.

Their annual revenue has also soared to £617m. Only six clubs in world football – Real Madrid, Man City, Paris Saint-Germain, Man United, Bayern Munich and Barcelona – can boast higher turnover.

Fans will therefore question why Mikel Arteta did not have the funds to sign a world-class striker in January, which coupled with their injury list has effectively derailed the North Londoners’ title aspirations.

Stan Kroenke and the rest of the top brass at Kroenke Sports & Entertainment do not like underwriting losses and want the club to return to profitability soon.

They’re naturally risk-averse. Their analysis told them that paying £100-150m in a window where clubs are routinely held to ransom was worth it, especially with Liverpool likely to beat Arsenal to the title anyway.

Position	Team	Played MP	Won W	Drawn D	Lost L	For GF	Against GA	Diff GD	Points Pts
1	LiverpoolLiverpool	28	20	7	1	66	26	40	67
2	ArsenalArsenal	27	15	9	3	51	23	28	54
3	Nottm ForestNottingham Forest	27	14	6	7	44	33	11	48
4	Man CityManchester City	27	14	5	8	53	37	16	47
5	ChelseaChelsea	27	13	7	7	52	36	16	46
6	NewcastleNewcastle	27	13	5	9	46	38	8	44

Some have suggested that Arsenal’s corporate culture is to blame for their hesitance in the transfer market, with senior positions dominated by staff with legal backgrounds and mindsets.

Stan Kroenke – and his son, Josh Kroenke, who is the public face of the regime at the Emirates these days – does not have the same problems with any of his US sports franchises.

On that side of the Atlantic, the closed-shop leagues and salary caps means profits are guaranteed for KSE-owned Los Angeles Rams, Denver Nuggets, Colorado Avalanche and Colorado Rapids.

Volatility is inherent in football’s financial ecosystem. That’s why the Kroenkes were so desperate to join the European Super League in 2021.

That star-crossed project was financed by Arsenal sponsor JP Morgan, who brokered KSE’s takeover of the club, and organised on the same principles as US franchise sport.

If the 12 breakaway clubs had gotten away with it, the Super League would have delivered huge revenues and profits.

It also could have added a zero to Arsenal’s enterprise value, which is ultimately the most important metric for Kroenke, whose capital appreciation plan is to one day flip the club at a huge markup.

As it happens, the Super League is back. Although, the imminent introduction of a government-backed independent football regulator will block any English clubs from joining.

Kroenke meanwhile is continuing to privately fund Arsenal with the aim of giving the club a platform for sustained profitability.

Now, Arsenal’s latest set of accounts have revealed the level of their reliance on their owner, with potential implications for their ability to spend under Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR).

• READ MORE: Gary Neville thinks he knows the reason why Arsenal didn’t sign a striker in January

Stan Kroenke loans more cash to Arsenal

In 2021 at the height of the pandemic, Arsenal took out a £120m loan from the Bank of England to ease anxiety around cash flow as the Emirates Stadium stood empty and broadcast rebate fees spiralled.

Kroenke later replaced that arrangement with a facility from Barclays and, more recently, loaned the club money out of his own pocket.

Their accounts for 2023-24 show that the Gunners total debt is £342m, up significantly from £259m the previous year.

£324m of that figure – which is repayable with two years’ notice – has come from Kroenke himself in the form of a ‘soft loan’, a term used to describe loans from shareholders at a low or no interest rate.

Only Brighton and Everton have higher soft loans, and there is large gap between Arsenal and fourth-place Chelsea.

The increase from the 2022-23 figures can be partly attributed to rising borrowing costs on the external share of the debt, but the swing is sizable regardless.

Could Manchester City’s APT case impact Arsenal’s PSR status?

Another facet of Arsenal’s soft loans situation is that, because of Manchester City’s recent challenge to the Premier League’s Associated Party Transaction (APT) rules, is now treated as a subsidy.

City’s successful argument at the arbitration proceedings was that soft loans are no different from commercial deals and should therefore be subject to fair market value scrutiny.

Now, soft loans will have a notional interest rate applied for them for the purposes of PSR, meaning Arsenal’s £324m debt to Kroenke will theoretically reduce their capacity to spend.

However, that will only be the case if the loans are deemed to not represent fair market value. If not, the notional interest charge could be £15-20m per year.

“Net finance charges have gone from £6.2m to £18.4m,” says Liverpool University football finance lecturer and industry insider Kieran Maguire, speaking exclusively to TBR Football.

“Bank loans and the cost of raising long term finance accounts for around £3.45m of that. There is £7.8m ‘other’, which is probably in relation to transfer fees payable.

“There was £259m owed to Stan Kroenke, up to £324m in the latest set of accounts.

“If you take a look at the breakdown of the interest figure and the related party transactions, I can’t see any interest being charged.

“Arsenal are in a very strong position in terms of PSR regardless. This will eat into it but not in any way that is going to trouble them.”

• READ MORE: Emile Smith Rowe and Joe Willock react after former Arsenal teammate Eddie Nketiah finally scores for Crystal Palace

Arsenal vice-chair Tim Lewis receives apology over regulator comments

Once set up, financial regulation will be in the purview of the independent regulator for English football.

There is near universal opposition to the regulator among Premier League clubs, although the initiative has overwhelming support from fans and pundits.

Arsenal vice-chair Tim Lewis, who is Stan Kroenke’s right-hand man and enforcer in North London, has been one of the public faces of the opposition to the bill in the Premier League.

When interviewed in January, Lewis raised concerns about the cost of the regulator, its backstop powers to modify parachute payments, and its potential to inhibit investment in football.

In response, Sports minister Stephanie Peacock accused Lewis, as well as West Ham’s Karen Brady and Brighton’s Paul Barber, of “seeking to derail the debate, promote untruths and preserve the status quo.”

Their campaign against the regulator, the MP for Barnsley South said, was “cynically designed to dither, delay and block [the regulator’s] progress”.

Peacock has now issued an apology.

The saga has been emblematic of the Premier League’s uneasy relationship with the government, as well as its free market dogma.

Incidentally, if it was in the US and applied to the NFL, the regulator would have blocked KSE’s relocation of Rams from St Louis to Los Angeles, which Lewis was central to.