Arsenal majority shareholder Stan Kroenke has landed
himself in hot water in his homeland, after double-booking the home
of his NBA basketball franchise with a WWE wrestling
event.
The American businessman, who owns a 28.3 percent stake in the
Emirates Stadium outfit, had agreed to hire out the Pepsi Arena in
Denver, Colarado to World Wrestling Entertainment to stage a
wrestling show next Monday night.
However, the event is now set to clash with an NBA play-off match
between the LA Lakers and, Kroenke's basketball team, the Denver
Nuggets, who had not progressed to the latter stages of the
competition for five years.
And the balls-up has led Vince McMahon, owner of WWE, to
challenge 62-year-old Kroenke to a steel-cage match, with the
winner entitled to use the Pepsi Arena next week.
“Kroenke should be arrested for impersonating a good businessman,
because, quite frankly, he’s not a good businessman,” said
McMahon.
“The fans in Denver had a lot more faith in making the play-offs
than the owner."
An NBA spokesman has confirmed the date of the game cannot be
changed and added the league was “confident that the Pepsi Centre
and the WWE will resolve their scheduling conflict.”
With no escape clause in Kroenke's agreement with the WWE, any
resolution is expected to involve either switching the basketball
game to an alternate city or coughing up a hefty sum of
compensation to the WWE.
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