Dangote reveals plans to buy Arsenal Football Club

Respected businessman, Aliko Dangote, has admitted that he is still interested in buying English Premier League team, Arsenal.

Dangote, who is Africa’s richest man, is worth $15.7billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and was rebuffed in his attempts to buy a stake in the club in 2010.

“I still hope, one day at the right price, that I’ll buy the team,” Dangote said in an interview on a flight between Addis Ababa and Lagos.

“I might buy it, not at a ridiculous price but a price that the owners won’t want to resist. I know my strategy.”

If the 58-year-old is successful with a future bid, it would make him the first African owner of a club in England. Billionaires like Roman Abramovich (Russia) and Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan have purchased Chelsea and Manchester City respectively.

Arsenal is currently valued at £988m ($1.49bn) and Stan Kroenke, owner of the National Football League’s St. Louis Rams holds 67% shares in the club. Uzbek billionaire Alisher Usmanov and Farhad Moshiri, own 30%.

Dangote, who has interests in sugar, flour, cement, oil etc, however, says he is not planning to make a bid soon.

“We have $16 billion-worth of investments in the next few years,” he said.

“Right now, I want to take my own business to a certain level. Once I finish on that trajectory, then maybe an offer will follow”.

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