Arsenal's boardroom is gripped by fresh tensions, with
Alisher Usmanov set to confront Ivan Gazidis over claims that advisers to the club's directors ordered an investigation into Usmanov's prison past in the Soviet Union.
The Russian is the second-biggest shareholder at
Arsenal, and his purchase of £75m-worth of the club's shares two years ago was met with resistance from fans, shareholders and directors alike. But despite that past hostility, revelations on Channel Four's Dispatches programme on Monday night that a private investigator was hired by a company working for the Arsenal board came as a shock to the oligarch.
The investigator visited Tashkent, where Usmanov spent six years in jail, while working on a brief to uncover details about his conviction and its subsequent annulment by Russian and Uzbek courts.
Arsenal wanted nothing to do with Usmanov. We now have fans whining because he was sanctioned and we lost out on his blood money. While crying about everyone else being corrupt.