Billionaire Alisher Usmanov in April made an offer to buy a controlling stake in London football club Arsenal for $ 1.3 billion, reports the Financial Times referring to three people familiar with the situation.

Usmanov, who owns 30% of the club, wants to buy out 67% of the shares from the American tycoon Stan Cronke. Thus, the club is estimated at $ 2 billion.

Kronke has not yet given an official answer. As the newspaper notes, he did not immediately reject the proposal, but then made it clear that he was not interested in selling his stake to anyone. According to the FT source, two weeks ago it seemed that the deal was possible, but now he is not sure.

In April, in an interview with Bloomberg Usmanov said that the blame for the unsuccessful results of the club this season lies not only on the head coach Arsen Venger, but also on Kronka with the board of directors. Usmanov himself was suspended from making decisions. Now Arsenal is in fifth place in the championship of England and risks for the first time in 20 years not to get into the UEFA Champions League, which will deprive him of about 50 million pounds of revenue.

Group and Arsenal did not respond to the request for comment. The company Red & White, through which Usmanov owns shares of the club, declined to comment.

For one game before the end of the current season Arsenal goes to the 5th place, behind the 4th place, which gives the right to play in the next Champions League drawing, at 1 point. In place of the four also claim Manchester City and Liverpool, which have 75 and 73 points respectively against 72 in Arsenal. The last games of the season 2016/2017 start on Sunday at 17.00 Moscow time, Arsenal will play with Everton, Manchester City - with Watford, Liverpool - with Middlesbrough.