Kronke

Gilles Grimandi was one of Wenger’s first transfers into Arsenal.  Never a glamorous player, he worked for the squad, playing when required, in any position required.  Once he turned out for the first team on sunday, and then led the reserves in a League Cup game the next day.  

Despite his modest profile he won two league medal and two cup medals.

What is then often forgotten is that he went to Colorado and played for Kronke’s team – that is Kronke who in 2007 started buying up Arsenal shares and seeming arranged a pact with Dein, behind the Board’s back.

Grimandi lasted one season in Coloardo – his last as a professional footballer before becoming Arsenal’s chief scout in France.   Not highly publicised, but if you think of the footballers who have come out of France since that moment, you’ll realise just how amazingly important that role is.  And it was given to a man straight out of football – that is the measure of the regard with which Wenger holds Grimandi.

Matters remained quiet until Kronke did his first deal with Arsenal – agreeing to use the Arsenal name for his teams, and make Colorado a centre for Arsenal’s plans to recruit players from the American league.   This move complemented Arsenal’s involvement in Belgium, Thailand and elsewhere.

Even then few people made the connection between Grimandi and Kronke.   And it is quite possible that when the Board at Arsenal suggested that Wenger could bring in his own man to replace Dein as Director of Football, they never imagined Grimandi would be the choice of Wenger.

When the idea came to the fore and the Board met there was serious misgivings, and a rare (if not unique) dispute between the Board and Manager broke out.  Amusingly, although tell of this event reached the press, they mis-read it as an argument about who Wenger wanted to sign.   This was quite silly – for the Board has never once expressed any opinion about anyone Wenger has wanted.  And indeed how could they given his track record.

What worried them was that Grimandi, as Director of Football, would be Kronke’s voice on the Board.  Mitigating against this was that Grimandi’s time at Colorado was not a footballing success, and he cut short his two year contract.

But the fact is Grimandi spent most of his footballing life playing for Wenger – at Monaco and Arsenal, and was then given a major post as a scout, before the suggestion that he should take up the Director of football position.

Was the connection with Kronke just a coincidence?  Of all the clubs in all the world he ended up with Kronke? 

The Board at Arsenal didn’t think so.