buy one of English Premier League's "big four" teams, Arsenal FC.
Africa's richest businessman believed the building of an oil refinery
in his homeland would give him the finance to secure a takeover.
The 58-year-old Kano State indigene, north-west Nigeria, who has an
estimated wealth of £11.5bn, noted he had been supporting the Gunners
since the 1980s.
"When we get this refinery on track, I will have enough time and
enough resources to pay what they are asking for," Dangote told BBC
Hausa.
American Stan Kroenke is Arsenal's majority shareholder, owning 66.64%
of the club's parent company Arsenal Holdings Plc.
Russian-Uzbek, Alisher Usmanov, owns 29.11% with the remainder of the
62,217 shares held by minority shareholders including former players
and the Arsenal Supporters' Trust, who own three.
Dangote, who is presently ranked 67th on the Forbes rich list, had
previously been interested in purchasing the 15.9% stake sold to
Kroenke for £123m by Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith in April 2011 only to
pull out.
"There were a couple of us who were rushing to buy, and we thought
with the prices then, the people who were interested in selling were
trying to go for a kill," Dangote added.
"We backtracked, because we were very busy doing other things,
especially our industrialisation."
Africa's richest businessman also noted that the North London giants
require a different ownership in order to be more successful on the
pitch.
"They are doing well, but they need another strategic direction. They
need more direction than the current situation, where they just
develop players and sell them," Dangote explained.
—ChannelsTV
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