Gunners board stand firm after meeting

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The investment company, jointly owned by London-based Moshiri and Russian Alisher Usmanov, on Friday further increased their stake in Arsenal to 23%, consolidating their position as the second-largest shareholder behind director Danny Fiszman, who owns 24.11%.

A statement read: "The board of Arsenal Holdings wish to confirm that a constructive meeting took place between Peter Hill-Wood, Keith Edelman and Farhad Moshiri of Red and White Holdings Limited. Board members of Arsenal Football Club wish to reiterate their intention of retaining their shareholding in the club and have no intention of selling any shares."

He added: "The board believe that the continued success of the club can best be achieved by the company remaining independent."

Shares in Arsenal are now trading around the £10,000 mark, and talk of a full-blown takeover shows few signs of dissipating.

Arsenal's parent company earlier this week published highly impressive figures for 2006/2007, with overall turnover up to £200.8million at Emirates Stadium and operating profit also increased significantly to £51.2million following the club's move to their new 60,000-seater home.

Despite all of the speculation, however, the current board have always maintained they have no intention of selling up, and are currently in a 12-month "lockdown" agreement.

Arsenal already have a good working relationship with American billionaire investor Stan Kroenke, whose company hold around 12% of stock and have a marketing partnership with the Gunners through their Major League Soccer club Colorado Rapids.

On the pitch, meanwhile, the speculation over ownership shows little sign of distracting the team. Arsene Wenger takes his side to West Ham on Saturday looking to stay top of the Barclays Premier League table and the manager has no intention of losing that focus.

"What we have a responsibility for is to keep our owners happy on the football pitch and whoever runs the club it would be exactly the same. We have to focus on football," said Wenger. "At the moment we are not looking at a change of owners of the club."