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Daniel Ek, CEO and co-founder of Spotify AB, stands for a photo after a press conference in Tokyo, Japan, on Thursday, September 29, 2016.

Akio Kon | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Spotify owner Daniel Ek says he is prepared for a “long journey” with his offer to buy Arsenal and will make “a very compelling offer” to get the Kroenke family to sell.

Swedish billionaire Ek, 38, who has enlisted the support of club legends Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp and Patrick Vieira, is expected to make his first £ 1.8 billion offer in the next few days.

The Kroenkes, whose possession was again rejected after the club’s participation in the failed European Super League last week, insist on “not maintaining an offer”.

Ek expects the Kroenkes to decline his original offer but is ready to be patient in what is expected to be a long process.

Speaking to Sky’s sister station CNBC, Ek said, “I have secured the funds and I want to make what I think is a very compelling offer to the owners and I hope they will hear me out.”

Ek, who expressed interest in a deal on Twitter last Friday night, said he was “very serious” about his takeover bid and wanted to “get the fans back on track”.

“I just see a tremendous opportunity to develop a real vision for the club to bring it back to its glory,” he added.

He has already indicated that if he manages to buy the club, he would be open to fan representation on the Arsenal board, including the ability to give fans a “golden share” that gives them a veto right over important decisions.

“I just focus on the club, I focus on the fans and I focus on bringing the club back to stardom,” added Ek, speaking after Spotify announced its first quarter results on Wednesday.

“I’m a fan first and foremost, that’s the most important thing for me. I want the club to do better. That’s my main interest.”

Ek, who co-founded Spotify in 2006 and is valued at £ 3.2 billion, does not consider his approach to buying the club personal and was careful not to criticize the current owners during his television appearance.

Stan Kroenke, who owns Kroenke Sports & Entertainment (KSE), has owned Arsenal since April 2011.

KSE also owns the NFL franchise Los Angeles Rams, the NBA team Denver Nuggets, the NHL team Colorado Avalanche and the MLS team Colorado Rapids.

Arsenal director Josh Kroenke told a fan forum that his family will work harder to be more effective with fans in the future.

Mikel Arteta’s team, currently in 10th place and 12 points behind fourth-placed Chelsea, must effectively win the Europa League if they are to play European football next season.

Fans who are dissatisfied with Kroenkes have someone to rally behind.

Analysis by Sky Sports News reporter Kaveh Solhekol:

“The skeptics said this was a publicity stunt. The cynics said there was no way this would happen. Well, we’ve now heard from the captain himself. Daniel Ek has made it clear that he is very serious about buying Arsenal , he has secured the funds. We know Arsenal is worth at least £ 2bn which would suggest that he has managed to raise this type of funding to advance this proposed deal.

“He describes it as a very compelling, thoughtful offer and says to the Kroenkes, ‘Please listen to me, I’ll make this offer in the next few days, it will be presented to you and then it’s up to you to decide. He knows already that the Kroenkes have said that Arsenal is not for sale. This is no surprise, of course no one will come out and tell their Premier League club what it’s worth. Billions of pounds are for sale. But in business, like our colleagues at CNBC stressed everything has a price.

“If he can get the Kroenkes to sell, he’ll be ready to move in and buy Arsenal. In the long term, I find it interesting that he himself said he was prepared for a long journey. be rejected, he expects the Kroenke’s to tell him that the club is not for sale. But now he will always be in the background. We know he’s a real fan, he’s been a fan for 30 years. We know now he’s close to Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp and Patrick Vieira. He has the legends on board, and those fans who are dissatisfied with the Kroenkes now have someone to rally behind. “

Read more stories from Sky Sports

How could Ek fund Arsenal’s takeover bid?

Sky News business host Ian King tells Sky Sports News:

“I think he was pretty measured, to be honest. He answered all the questions they asked him about Arsenal. What I took away from is that he said, ‘I don’t expect this to be anything is what it is. ” done overnight. “He’s not going to try to rush his fences on that note.

Arsenal Bosnian defender Sead Kolasinac (R) was born in Germany and plays the ball during the English Premier League soccer match between Arsenal and Manchester United on March 10, 2019 at the Emirates Stadium in London.

Ben Stansall | AFP | Getty Images

“Many questions arise from the interview he gave to CNBC. One of them is that he received the funding, where he got it from and, if successful, what assets the funding would have, for example in his stake in Spotify secure?

“His fortune has actually been misreported in the last few days. I mean the exact detail is that he owns 8 percent of Spotify, and currently Spotify shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) are actually down 10 percent this afternoon. That Corporate Now it’s worth around $ 50 billion, so he owns 8 percent of the $ 50 billion – roughly $ 4 billion, to be precise. Now we don’t know if he has any excess cash.

“Don’t forget that a lot of Arsenal fans keep their fingers crossed and hope to see the Kroenke. Keep in mind, however, that you’ve seen other football club takeovers – especially when the Glazer family bought Manchester United – a lot of it was debt financed, they didn’t raise a lot of equity to buy this business and accordingly much of it was backed up against the club’s assets and debt servicing was a tremendous burden, a tremendous outflow over the years in Manchester United’s coffers. “

A large nationwide study found important differences in the two main causes of serious illness in children from the coronavirus. These results can help doctors and parents better identify the conditions and understand more about the children at risk.

The study, published Wednesday in JAMA magazine, analyzed 1,116 cases of young people being treated in 66 hospitals in 31 states. Just over half of the patients had acute Covid-19, the predominantly lung-related disease that affects most adults with the virus, while 539 patients had the inflammatory syndrome, which in some children follows a typical mild one weeks Disease broke out, initial infection.

The researchers found some similarities, but also significant differences, in the symptoms and characteristics of the patients, who ranged from infants to 20-year-olds who were hospitalized between March 15 and October 31 last year.

Young people with the syndrome known as Pediatric Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome, or MIS-C, were more likely to be between 6 and 12 years old, while more than 80 percent of patients with acute Covid-19 were either younger than 6 years or older were as 12.

More than two-thirds of patients with both conditions were Black or Hispanic, which experts say most likely reflects socio-economic and other factors that some communities have disproportionately exposed to the virus.

“It is still shocking that the vast majority of patients are not white, and that goes for MIS-C and for acute Covid,” said Dr. Jean A. Ballweg, Medical Director, Pediatric Heart Transplant and Advanced Heart Failure at Children’s Hospital & Medical Center in Omaha, who was not involved in the study. “There are clearly racial differences.”

For unclear reasons, while Hispanic adolescents appeared to be equally at risk for both conditions, black children appeared to be at greater risk for developing the inflammatory syndrome than the acute disease, said Dr. Adrienne Randolph, the study’s lead author and a specialist in pediatric intensive care at Boston Children’s Hospital.

One possible clue that the authors mention is that in Kawasaki disease, a rare childhood inflammatory syndrome that shares similarities with some aspects of MIS-C, black children are more likely to have cardiac abnormalities and are less responsive to one of the standard treatments: intravenous Immunoglobulin.

The researchers found that young people with the inflammatory syndrome were significantly more likely to have no underlying illnesses than those with acute Covid. Nevertheless, more than a third of patients with acute Covid had no previous illness. “It’s not that previously healthy children are completely unscathed here,” said Dr. Randolph.

In the study, obesity was assessed separately from other underlying health conditions and only in patients 2 years and older. It found that a slightly higher percentage of young people with acute Covid were obese.

Updated

Apr. 26, 2021 at 1:54 am ET

Dr. Srinivas Murthy, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of British Columbia who was not involved in the study, said he was not convinced the results show that healthy children are at higher risk for MIS-C. It could “mostly be a numbers game where the proportion of infected children and the proportion of healthy children is out there, instead of saying that healthy children have something immune that puts them at disproportionately higher risk,” he said.

Overall, the study’s documentation of the differences between the two conditions was useful, especially because it reflected “a reasonably representative group of hospitals in the US.”

Young people with the inflammatory syndrome were more likely to have had to be treated in intensive care units. Her symptoms more commonly included gastrointestinal problems and inflammation, as well as skin and mucous membranes. They were also much more likely to have heart problems, although many of the acute Covid patients didn’t get detailed heart exams, the study said.

About the same large proportion of patients with any disease – more than half – required airway support, with slightly less than a third of patients requiring mechanical ventilation. About the same small number of patients in each group died: 10 with MIS-C and eight with acute Covid-19.

The data does not reflect a recent surge in inflammatory syndrome cases that followed a surge in total Covid-19 infections across the country during the winter holiday season. Some hospitals have reported that there were more seriously ill MIS-C patients in the current wave compared to previous waves.

“I’ll be intrigued to see a comparison with this group from November 1st because I think we all felt that the kids with MIS-C have been even sicker lately,” said Dr. Ball path.

An optimistic sign from the study was that most severe heart problems in young people with inflammatory syndrome improved to normal within 30 days. Dr. However, Randolph said any remaining effects are still unknown, which is why one of her co-authors, Dr. Jane Newburger, assistant director of academic affairs in the cardiology department at Boston Children’s Hospital, conducted a statewide study to track children with inflammatory syndrome for up to five years.

“We can’t say 100 percent for sure that everything will be normal in the long run,” said Dr. Randolph.