Ivan Gazidis, the chief executive of English Premier League club Arsenal, has spoken out in praise of the club's ownership structure and economic strength.

Gazidis, who described the club as "bigger than any of its individual owners," last week refuted suggestions that the club would be taken over by either Stan Kroenke, the club's majority shareholder, or the club's second largest shareholder, Alisher Usmanov.

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"We're a very transparent club, we're a public company so we issue our financial statements," Gazidis was quoted as saying by The Leader, the news service provided by the Leaders in Football conference. "Our most recent one just came out and shows us to be very, very robust financially, delivering a profit of £45 million so the club is very well positioned.

"All of the money we generate goes back into the club. We don't pay dividends and so they haven't gone out of the club to shareholders, it's reinvested into the club. That model, which we call a self-sustaining model, really means that the club has a sort of independence from its ownership, it stands on its own two feet. I like to say that Arsenal is bigger than any of its individual owners."

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