Takeover rumours are driving the price of Arsenal shares to a record high and putting millions on the value of the investments held by the ten directors. The share price closed last night at £6,200, up £900 in a week since Danny Fiszman, the largest shareholder, sparked speculation by offloading some of his stake.

The most spectacular investment, though, is that of David Dein, the vice-chairman, who first bought into Arsenal in 1983, spending £290,250 on 1,161 shares. Peter Hill-Wood, the chairman, said at the time: “I think he’s crazy. It’s dead money.” Last night, Dein, a lifelong supporter, was sitting on a stake worth about £57 million.

However, that stake can be realised only if Dein puts his shares up for sale and the club and analysts dismissed the prospect of Arsenal — the last of the Barclays Premiership’s Champions League clubs to be in English ownership — being sold to foreign investors. The club said last night that there has been no approach and there is no interest in selling.

Supporters, though, are baffled by the astonishing rise in the price of shares and who is buying them. Shares were priced at only £700, with the club valued at £39.2 million, when Arsenal joined the Plus Markets Group, a “junior” stock market specialising in small companies, in October 1995.

Six months ago, they were worth about £4,500 but, by the start of this month, were trading at £5,300. Fiszman, a diamond dealer and another lifelong supporter, received £5,975 a share when he offloaded 659 last week, worth £3.9 million.

That sparked a renewal of the takeover talk persistent for months. Investors in Dubai and Qatar are continually pushed into the frame by City speculation, while rumours linger that Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire oligarch in the mould of Roman Abramovich, is waiting to pounce.

A spokesman for the Arsenal Supporters’ Trust said last night: “It is all very intriguing. We know who is selling, but we don’t know who is buying the shares or why. And the movement in the price has been so rapid that it makes us wonder what is going on. We are not worried, but it is unsettling.”

Arsenal are an attractive target: the club still own the old Highbury site where new high-priced apartments are being built, while the new 60,000seat Emirates Stadium has transformed finances, bringing in gate receipts of up to £2 million for each home match.

Such a change in fortunes will have accounted for some of the rise in the share price, but it also makes Arsenal an increasingly expensive football commodity. At a present market value of £385 million, potential buyers would be making the second-biggest purchase in British football history, beaten only by the Glazer family takeover of Manchester United, which amounted to £790 million.

The chances of a takeover are slim, though, as long as the board is controlled by three key shareholders, whose wealth and love for the club outweigh their need to sell. Dein, who holds almost 15 per cent of the shares, is a powerbroker who took Arsène Wenger to the club and has been a powerful influence in English football over the past decade. Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith, who has a stake of almost 16 per cent, is a member of a family dynasty whose association with Arsenal goes back more than 60 years. The most speculation surrounds Fiszman, but he has said repeatedly that he does not want to sell and he devoted himself to the move from Highbury to the Emirates Stadium. The most likely to sell is ITV, which is desperate to get rid of its 9.9 per cent. But even if it sold, it would not be enough to trigger a full takeover bid while that powerful trio remains dedicated to Arsenal.

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