Restructure and redundancies

[Linus]

Absolutely shameful. I can't defend it in any way, This isn't my club any more.

Do job cuts not take place in any other walk of life? In any other industry or business? I understand that the news is never good and that it's entirely understandable to sympathize with those being affected but your statement seems rather melodramatic. Is this the first time people have lost jobs at the club?

They're losing their jobs as a result of total mismanagement by the board, huge pay-offs to incompetent managers, and the flailing efforts of overpaid footballers. Job cuts, usually labelled "economies", do take place in every other walk of life, and it's never to the betterment of anything except the owners/shareholders.

Football clubs depend on the loyalty of their fans, and that loyalty is traditionally unconditional. But when the clubs start behaving like "brands" or like "corporations" they deserve nothing. You can excuse poor performances on the pitch, because it's sport (supposedly) and that happens. What you cannot excuse is your club - that you've reserved that special place in your heart for - acting like every other fucking thing that should be despised in the world.

[Pete3206]

Absolutely shameful. I can't defend it in any way, This isn't my club any more.

Do job cuts not take place in any other walk of life? In any other industry or business? I understand that the news is never good and that it's entirely understandable to sympathize with those being affected but your statement seems rather melodramatic. Is this the first time people have lost jobs at the club?

Yes of course you are correct about the business side of it.

But, this is a highly emotive topic and people are understandably upset and sympathetic to those affected. When you factor in people from the board to the management and players who have failed hard working staff and supporters so miserably, I have no problem at all with those who want to vent their spleen.

[four fornicholl]

Is there a law that defines and differentiates players as "not staff"?
If not, sack every slacker mentioned on here, every last fkn one of them!

[Clampy]

I've been there myself and it is pretty unpleasant to go through so whatever happens, I hope the unlucky one's sort themselves out.

[PeterWithesShin]

How many venting their spleen laughed and celebrated Newcastle going down, various sha/bitters relegations and so on? All those resulted in job losses,with the latter two involving fellow Brummies losing their jobs. Or is it only an issue when it's Villa staff?

It's shit that normal hard working staff lose their jobs when a club gets relegated, especially as the majority of players just carry on earning a fortune but it's football, and has been for a long time.

[PeterWithe]

Is there a law that defines and differentiates players as "not staff"?
If not, sack every slacker mentioned on here, every last fkn one of them!

The players will have fixed term contracts and the staff won't. Actually I wonder if you could try it, we are going down so don't need a chubby back up striker with a poor attendance and performance record. The role is redundant.

Worth a try?

[Chico Hamilton III]

Is there a law that defines and differentiates players as "not staff"?
If not, sack every slacker mentioned on here, every last fkn one of them!

Probably completely wrong, but isn't it the position or role that is made redundant and not the person? Can't exactly make a goalkeeping position redundant, for example. Although We'd probably do better with nobody in goal than having Guzan spooking the defence.
A real shame that people are losing their jobs. Probably Villa people as well, the sort that will probably still be watching us long after the life-sucking players have fucked off with their millions

Edit, looks like PW posted something similar and funnier above at the same time.

[UK Redsox]

Given an insolvency practitioner was made Chairman this was always going to happen. Still doesn't make it any better, especially when we have so many jokers on the playing staff cheating a living out of the Villa.

I know that Hollis was high up at KPMG and worked in restructuring but was/is he actually an IP?

[Villafirst]

To think that we paid that jerk Fox £1.25M per year.

[Chris Jameson]

Which of the players will turn up for training tomorrow in their brand new, top of the range car tomorrow do you reckon? My money is on Agbonlahor, he's thick enough to do it.

Michael Gray decided the week Sunderland announced redundancies that it was a good time to turn up for training in his brand new Porsche.

[Le Lapin]

The leeches that play for our club should hang their heads in shame, we all know who these guys are. I went through a reduncy seven years ago, it's shit, I feel for  those involved.  Enjoy your lavish, vacuous lifestyles you overpaid pampered pricks. They should be made see that their actions have reactions in the real world.  But I reckon they are too self absorbed to give any regard to the minions that do the invisible work at our club.

[Jimbo]

To go from a stable position as an established top-flight club, to the unmitigated disaster that we have become, isn't some routine fact of business. It's gross mismanagement. That's why revenue is set to drop massively, why people are losing their jobs and why people are rightfully angry. The people in charge of the club have pissed it all away, not just through sheer incompetence and stupidity, but through sheer neglect as well.

Even in the corporate environment that football now is, 'big' clubs like Villa are more than just businesses, they're institutions that serve a community. The payback from that community as 'customers' is loyalty. The club has massively failed that community.   

[kippaxvilla2]

Inevitablility of it all accepted it's still an absolutely fcukin shit time to be a Villa fan at the moment.  There's just nothing positive coming out.

[LeeB]

Is there a law that defines and differentiates players as "not staff"?
If not, sack every slacker mentioned on here, every last fkn one of them!

The players will have fixed term contracts and the staff won't. Actually I wonder if you could try it, we are going down so don't need a chubby back up striker with a poor attendance and performance record. The role is redundant.

Worth a try?

All of our players were signed as Premier League players, and as because due to their ineptitude we will no longer hold that status their positions are redundant and they should reapply for the new roles.

I think the cost of releasing players that nobody wanted out of this squad would outweigh any profits made from actual sales.

[Irish villain]

Maybe the £80k on the new badge should have been better spent

They started the badge stuff in the summer.

I haven't even read the rest of the thread but this?

Oh come on! Seriously? Do we always have to side with the powers that be at the club?

Why are people making a fuss about the Panama stuff? it won't make any difference to anybody but it still doesn't make it right. Why not turn the other cheek seeing as it was out of our hands!

It's the symbolism. It's the unfairness it represents. We can afford to faff about with a word on our logo but not keep on however many poorly paid employees would earn £80,000 in a year. Could we have pulled the plug on the stupid badge changes when we knew we were in trouble early this season in October? I am sue we could.

Also the point about laughing at Newcastle when they went down is so bloody irrelevant. We are talking about Aston Villa in 2016 wasting money left right and centre, having an incompetent team on the pitch and making so many employees, who bear no responsibility fo our plight, redundant.