debts, which meant the club was in need of new revenue. The other members of the board were said to have signed a contractual agreement that they would not sell their shares for a year, and they jointly expressed their intention to retain their shares in the longer term. Dein was replaced as G-14 chairman by Olympique Lyonnais chairman Jean-Michel Aulas the following month. Arsène Wenger stated "It is a huge disappointment because we worked very closely together, David has contributed highly to the success of the club in the last 10 years and even before that as well. Red and white are the colours of his heart." Former player Ian Wright also expressed his unhappiness at Dein's departure, and said the players were upset. Sale of Arsenal shareholding In August 2007, David Dein sold his 9,072 shares (14.58%) in the club for £75 million to Red & White Holdings, an investment vehicle of Russian metal billionaire Alisher Usmanov and his business partner Farhad Moshiri. Dein was appointed as chairman of Red & White, which was at the time the largest shareholder in the club outside of members of the board of directors. In September 2008, he resigned as chairman of Red & White, with The Times suggesting it was to improve relations between Arsenal and Red & White. The Football Association In 1986, Dein was voted onto the board of the Football League Management Committee and subsequently achieved a place on the FA Council. He was also one of the major architects of the FA Premier League in 1992. He eventually rose to the position of vice-chairman of the FA in 2000, a post he held until 2004 when it was scrapped after restructuring. He was subsequently re-elected to the FA Board as an FA Premier League representative. Dein was a key mover in the FA's manoeuvreing to hire Sven-Göran Eriksson as England manager in 2001. Five years later, in 2006 he was one of four members of an FA panel (the others being Brian Barwick, Noel White and Dave Richards) tasked with identifying Eriksson's replacement. Dein's preferred choice, Luiz Felipe Scolari, was offered the job and looked set to take it but later changed his mind; the FA eventually chose Middlesbrough manager Steve McClaren. Dein sat on the FA Board until 2 June 2006 as one of four representatives of the FA Premier League clubs. He was replaced