I learned so much from David’s book: about business, innovation, risk-taking, management, leadership, dealing with people, football, love… and life.

Calling the Shots: How to Win in Football and Life by David Calling the Shots: How to Win in Football and Life by David

There's no doubt that Dein has been one of the most significant and influential figures in British football for over three decades - operating at club and international level. He was a prime mover in the creation of the Premier League, hugely influential within the England set-up and, of course, was the mastermind - along with Arsene Wenger - in creating the glory days of Arsenal Football Club, leading the team for almost a quarter of a century. Connected to the most senior figures across the global game as a friend, rival, advisor, and collaborator, Dein has been central to major turning points in the game. I became leas interested in the book when it dwelt at length with his involvement with international football and prisons.Calling the Shots” is an engrossing read, from a man who has found himself at the centre of so much modern football history. Not just the rise and fall of the great teams of the man he calls his best friend, Arsène Wenger, or the battle for control of Arsenal that was won by the US billionaire Stan Kroenke. Dein was an architect of the new Premier League in the 1990s. He negotiated Sven Goran Eriksson’s England contract in the Rome apartment of his daughter Sasha. He lost a fortune. He made a fortune. He once put on a West End show. A life well-lived and now in his eighth decade launching a charity that uses the power of football to help the inmates of Britain’s prisons. However, my favorite chapter was Catch Him If You Can. It shows David’s resilience and character when dealing with serious adversity. Fifteen years on from the day that David Dein was forced off the Arsenal board and out the club one Wednesday evening in April 2007 still feels like a turning point in what was arguably the greatest era at one of English football’s biggest clubs, and at last he is telling his side of the story. Of course, since he was “in the room where it happened”, David explains how the Premier League was founded and why key Arsenal management decisions were made. The long-awaited memoir from international football ambassador, former co-owner of Arsenal FC and legend of the David Dein.

Calling the Shots: How to Win in Football and Life - AbeBooks

I was out the club. I was ostracised … so I just had to get the best price I could for the shares. But also thinking that maybe whoever I sold to could end up owning the club and then I would end up driving the car again. I didn't have an agenda. Kroenke in his wisdom had a value on the shares which wasn’t the same as mine. I ran Usmanov’s [Arsenal investment] vehicle for a year and built him up to 30 per cent. I had sold him 15 per cent and then I withdrew and that was it. I hardly saw him after that. That was the transaction.” There's no doubt that Dein has been one of the most significant and influential figures in British football for over three decades - operating at club and international level. He was a prime mover in the creation of the Premier League, hugely influential within the England set-up and, of course, was the mastermind - along with Arsène Wenger - in creating the glory days of Arsenal Football Club, leading the team for almost a quarter of a century. Connected to the most senior figures across the global game as a friend, rival, advisor, and collaborator, Dein has been central to major turning points in the game.

Then, he says, there were no warning signs of what was to come. “I don’t think 15 years ago there was any thought of the Russian oligarchs being sanctioned. Who can say that Roman [Abramovich] didn’t do a great job for them? You ask any Chelsea supporter. The club were virtually bust before Roman came in, he turned the club around.”

Calling the Shots by David Dein | Waterstones

It was Dein’s search for a billionaire that first took him to Khaldoon Al-Mubarak, who fronted Sheikh Mansour’s Abu Dhabi Manchester City takeover. They met through Bernie Ecclestone whose daughter Tamara was then dating Dein’s younger son Gavin. “We had some good chemistry there [with Khaldoon] and I felt he could be a good owner for the club. In the end the timing wasn’t right and then a year or two later he bought Manchester City.”The truth is you may think you know Kroenke but you don’t know him,” Dein writes. “He is difficult to get to. You put calls in and it is rare he will return them. They don’t call him Silent Stan for nothing.”