Dr Sulaiman Al Fahim met one of Arsenal's two biggest shareholders to consider investing £180m earlier this year before turning his attention to City.
Dr Al Fahim, who led negotiations for the Abu Dhabi United Group's £220m takeover of City, has a
dmitted he 'looked at' Arsenal, Liverpool and Newcastle before settling on City.
And The Mail on Sunday says that meetings took place with Arsenal stakeholder Alisher Usmanov earlier this year with a view to buying his 24 per cent holding.
The Abu Dhabi United Group would have had to pay a premium on the shares to gain a foothold at Arsenal, but Usmanov was only willing to sell a proportion of his stake.
The deal for all Usmanov's shares could have reached £180m and would have made ADUG the biggest shareholders in Arsenal, owning marginally more then director Danny Fiszman.
However, Fiszman and his fellow directors have agreed to offer first refusal on the sale of any shares to each other before selling out to foreign billionaires in a lockdown agreement which extends until 2012.
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