
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.
VIDEO: Watch the interview with Vince McMahon now