Arsenal managing director Vinai Venkatesham has defended the club's "hugely ambitious" owners despite scrutiny from fans, adding the north London outfit are changing policy when it comes to player contracts. 

Venkatesham and head of football Raul Sanllehi spoke with Laura Woods about the ownership of Stan Kroenke, whom he said is focused on bringing domestic and European success back to Arsenal, per the club's official website:

"Stan and Josh Kroenke are in sport because they're passionate about sport and because they want to win. So when I talk about the strategy around making our fans all across the world proud of their football club and competing to win the Premier League and the Champions League, that doesn't come from Raul and that doesn't come from me. That comes from our owners.

"They're hugely ambitious around where they want to take this football club, and they remind us of that all the time. They're massively involved."

Kroenke spent around £600 million to buy Alisher Usmanov out of his Arsenal shares and own the club outright in August 2018. However, Goal highlighted some supporters have grown tired of their inability to contend for the Premier League and UEFA Champions League during his involvement.

Arsenal legend Ian Wright spoke to CNBC at the time of Kroenke's takeover bid and expressed worry regarding his ownership:

Manchester City have been among the biggest spenders in world football over the past decade and have just defended the Premier League crown for a first time in their history.

Arsenal have started splurging more in recent years, but a messy divorce with former winger Alexis Sanchez in January 2018 highlighted flaws in their system.

Mesut Ozil's reported £350,000-per-week contract—which will run until June 2021—is another deal that's attracted criticism from some supporters since it was signed in early 2018.

Record signing Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is also on a deal until 2021, but Venkatesham expressed a heightened awareness over allowing such big contracts to run into their final year:

"We need to make sure we are really disciplined. A good example of that is senior players that aren't towards the end of their careers. We need to make sure that those players, when they've got two years left on their contract, we're making the difficult decisions.

"We're either renewing those players' contracts, or we're selling those players. So we're going to have to be brave with those decisions along the way, because we can't be in a situation where we are allowing players to walk out the door for free unless they are coming towards the end of their career."

Football finance analyst Kieran Maguire examined Arsenal's growing habit of signing players on contracts that other clubs looked unlikely to match at the end of the 2017-18 campaign:

Oliver Kay of The Times wrote about Kroenke as an example of one of the Premier League's "exploitative" owners earlier in May. The American also owns the Los Angeles Rams and the Denver Nuggets of the NFL and NBA, respectively, two franchises that reportedly command more of his attention.

Nevertheless, Venkatesham described it as "a good thing" that Arsenal have so many players on big contracts, identifying that as a sign of their ability to attract talented stars.

A clash against Chelsea in the UEFA Europa League final on May 29 will decide whether Arsenal make it back into next season's Champions League and boost their financial prospects.