Dangote targets another EPL club after missing Arsenal

Nigeria billionaire, Aliko Dangote is now considering buying another club in the Premier League following the reluctance of Stan Kroneke to sell Arsenal to him.

Kroenke owns almost all of Arsenal after buying Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov’s 30 per cent stake in August in a deal worth £1.8bn. It was funded with a £557m , two-year loan from Deutsche Bank AG.

The 71-year-old American is worth $8bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and also controls the National Football League’s Los Angeles Rams.

Dangote who is Africa’s richest man is a huge fan of the Emirates side and has always nursed the idea of investing in the club which he planned to do after completing his private refinery in Lagos.

“By the time we’ve finished, we’ll be a $30bn company in terms of revenue,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg TV at the New Economy Forum in Singapore. “We’ll have an excess amount of cash to start playing around with.”

“I’m very attached to Arsenal but if he won’t sell, I might have to change,” said Dangote, 61 years old and worth $11.1bn. “I’m very much a fan of football. I have to have a club. I don’t have to own Arsenal.”

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“The refinery is scheduled to start producing fuel in early 2020, and Lagos-based Dangote Cement Plc will probably be listed in London around September next year, he told Bloomberg.