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Author Topic: Tony’s Statement.  (Read 320718 times)

Offline PeterWithesShin

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Re: Tony’s Statement.
« Reply #450 on: June 06, 2018, 07:07:03 PM »
My first game as a nipper was around 74/75 which gives my age away a tad!

Offline villa `cross the mersey

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Re: Tony’s Statement.
« Reply #451 on: June 06, 2018, 07:09:31 PM »
My first game as a nipper was around 74/75 which gives my age away a tad!
I'll guess 49/50.   Still a youngster !!!

Offline PeterWithesShin

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Re: Tony’s Statement.
« Reply #452 on: June 06, 2018, 07:10:14 PM »
Close, 48.

Online Rudy Can't Fail

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Re: Tony’s Statement.
« Reply #453 on: June 06, 2018, 07:14:00 PM »
Quote from: Stan Collymore, Twitter
Owner believes that one club employee actively pushed for administration so that person could then be a part of a consortium to buy the club again, this ensuring continued role at Villa.

Quote from: Stan Collymore, Twitter
Consortium. Were at NDA stage with another club, tipped off that XXFC were for sale( including intimate financial details), dropped interest in other club and "parties" made sure it was circulated around the press. Shithousery on the grandest of scales.

 That's mental if true...now SVC is trying to get a fan buy-out going !

It most certainly is a strange one. It doesn't leave much to the imagination to guess who he's talking about.
Stan has always been a big supporter of fan ownership/part ownership.

Offline villa `cross the mersey

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Re: Tony’s Statement.
« Reply #454 on: June 06, 2018, 07:17:28 PM »
Close, 48.
did you go to the 75 League Cup Final?
My father had to literally drag me out of bed as I was suffering from pleuresy at the time - I cheered us on from the terraces wearing my pyjamas under my Villa shirt !!

Offline PeterWithesShin

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Re: Tony’s Statement.
« Reply #455 on: June 06, 2018, 07:19:58 PM »
Nope, 1977 was my first Wembley trip, on my 7th birthday.

Offline sirlordbaltimore

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Re: Tony’s Statement.
« Reply #456 on: June 06, 2018, 07:23:18 PM »
It didn't have to be an all or nothing approach.  There are degrees in between not spending anything and gambling everything so that if we didn't go up we're effectively bust.

Isn't this exactly what we did last season though ?

Season 1 spent way too much, around 40m net
Season 2 reigned it all in and made around 20m profit on transfers

Offline Risso

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Re: Tony’s Statement.
« Reply #457 on: June 06, 2018, 07:25:44 PM »
It didn't have to be an all or nothing approach.  There are degrees in between not spending anything and gambling everything so that if we didn't go up we're effectively bust.

Isn't this exactly what we did last season though ?

Season 1 spent way too much, around 40m net
Season 2 reigned it all in and made around 20m profit on transfers

We clearly spent a fortune on wages though, and it was very short term as none of the loan players would still be here in the event of failure.

Offline Ad@m

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Re: Tony’s Statement.
« Reply #458 on: June 06, 2018, 08:33:38 PM »
I'm an old(ish) bugger and I hate being in this shit pot league with a passion, however i'd have put up with being in it for a couple of years if we'd basically ripped the club apart and started fresh and built for the long term future, main reason I wanted Bruce gone after the first season was because we still looked a disjointed mess a lot of the time, not because we finished mid-table.
Instead we repeated all the same mistakes of going short term by buying a number of overpriced players that will be hard to shift, building up an unsustainable wage bill and hired a manager that as we've seen built pretty much everything based on a one season push. So now the odds look good that we'll be stuck down here for a fair old while barring a miracle.

I wouldn't be so sure.

A 12 point deduction and a team of kids could result in us going the way of Cov!

Offline myf

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Re: Tony’s Statement.
« Reply #459 on: June 06, 2018, 09:32:17 PM »
After events over the past 24 hours makes you wonder why he released his statement last week. Surely if he knew the scale of the shit storm about to unfold he would have kept quiet? Just smacks of someone who doesn't have a clue what has been going on

Offline brontebilly

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Re: Tony’s Statement.
« Reply #460 on: June 06, 2018, 09:49:34 PM »


Think of all the old buggers moaning about this league and how much they hate it for the past two seasons.

Now imagine the same people if we hadn't even spent all that money trying to get out of it.

The club tried, and failed. That's ambition apparently.

Maybe, with hindsight we should've adopted a new young/fresh team approach from the minute we came down. But then again just imagine the howls of derision from the 'we must go straight back up we're Aston Villa entitled brigade' if we had.

I don't know what to think anymore.





It didn't have to be an all or nothing approach.  There are degrees in between not spending anything and gambling everything so that if we didn't go up we're effectively bust.

There were warning signs from early days really. Newcastle funded their transfer spend through selling the likes of Sissoko to fund solid buys on the likes of Clark and Gayle.

Xia, Wyness and Round decided on a different approach entirely. We need a striker, let's buy McCormack and Kodjia for 20m combined. McCormack bombs, let's spend another 10m on Hogan about 6 months later. We need a midfielder, let's buy Lansbury and Hourihane in the space of a week. Need a right back, let's get in three.

Wyness is an utter snake. All the faffing about FFP when the solvency of the club has been at risk for months and possibly since the day Xia took over. He oversaw this from day 1, all chips thrown across the table on the 90 mins v Fulham. He should never work in business again not to mind football.

What really galls me is that we had to beg the likes of Burnley and Newcastle for cash to keep the lights on but at the same time were happy to let the likes of Richards and Gabby run down their contracts. Those two charlatans would gladly have taken an upfront cash payment to take their banter elsewhere for the last two years.

Online London Villan

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Re: Tony’s Statement.
« Reply #461 on: June 06, 2018, 09:55:47 PM »
Richards salary for the last 12 months would be quiet handy now.

Offline mallo

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Re: Tony’s Statement.
« Reply #462 on: June 06, 2018, 10:11:59 PM »
This all sounds like xia got Wyness in to look good but he wanted ultimate control. Wyness was happy to take the cash and do as he was told and tamper round the edges, now he wants to clear his name. Complete conjecture of course but when it turns to sh*t the higher levels always find their slopey shoulders so none of it is their fault and they can go on to other things. I think of all this, accountability becomes questionable - no-one in this borg will have anything stick and walk away. That is wrong. If a director of a company goes bankrupt there are at least some rules surrounding that.

Offline TheMalandro

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Re: Tony’s Statement.
« Reply #463 on: June 06, 2018, 11:35:23 PM »


Think of all the old buggers moaning about this league and how much they hate it for the past two seasons.

Now imagine the same people if we hadn't even spent all that money trying to get out of it.

The club tried, and failed. That's ambition apparently.

Maybe, with hindsight we should've adopted a new young/fresh team approach from the minute we came down. But then again just imagine the howls of derision from the 'we must go straight back up we're Aston Villa entitled brigade' if we had.

I don't know what to think anymore.





It didn't have to be an all or nothing approach.  There are degrees in between not spending anything and gambling everything so that if we didn't go up we're effectively bust.

There were warning signs from early days really. Newcastle funded their transfer spend through selling the likes of Sissoko to fund solid buys on the likes of Clark and Gayle.

Xia, Wyness and Round decided on a different approach entirely. We need a striker, let's buy McCormack and Kodjia for 20m combined. McCormack bombs, let's spend another 10m on Hogan about 6 months later. We need a midfielder, let's buy Lansbury and Hourihane in the space of a week. Need a right back, let's get in three.

Wyness is an utter snake. All the faffing about FFP when the solvency of the club has been at risk for months and possibly since the day Xia took over. He oversaw this from day 1, all chips thrown across the table on the 90 mins v Fulham. He should never work in business again not to mind football.

What really galls me is that we had to beg the likes of Burnley and Newcastle for cash to keep the lights on but at the same time were happy to let the likes of Richards and Gabby run down their contracts. Those two charlatans would gladly have taken an upfront cash payment to take their banter elsewhere for the last two years.

We bought decent championship players, for top dollar. We ended up a decent championship team.

Offline PeterWithesShin

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Re: Tony’s Statement.
« Reply #464 on: June 06, 2018, 11:47:48 PM »
Stuart James, The Guardian

Quote
Alarm bells were ringing at Aston Villa long before a tax bill went unpaid last month. The first indication that all was not well came last year, when Tony Xia’s monthly payments stopped arriving with the same frequency, leaving a club that were operating way beyond their means, and are totally dependent on the owner’s financial support, scrambling around to pay the bills.

Xia, the Chinese businessman who revealed that it was his dream to turn Villa into one of the world’s top three clubs when he took over two years ago, had previously always made regular transfers to cover the outgoings, averaging around £4m a month across his first season. Yet the Guardian understands that those payments were made nothing like as consistently from as far back as 2017.

Villa, one way or another, managed to get by for the majority of last season, sometimes by asking clubs to bring forward staggered transfer fees for players that had been sold on. That practice, not uncommon in the Championship, saw Villa write off money in the long term to solve cash-flow problems in the short term.

Reality, however, was about to bite. In April and May, as the season neared the end, the money trail from China dried up completely and Villa’s financial position became critical. HM Revenue & Customs was due a payment in the region of £4m after May’s payroll and Villa, quite simply, had no way of getting their hands on the money.

The Championship play-off final was on the horizon – a get-rich-quick ticket that had the potential to put Villa’s financial worries to bed – but so was the HMRC deadline, which came 24 hours before the pivotal game against Fulham at Wembley. Villa missed the deadline and the golden ticket slipped through their fingers the following day. Suddenly it was crisis time.

Plenty of staff working within Villa Park must have seen the storm coming, including Keith Wyness, the chief executive, who felt duty-bound to act once it became clear that the club were not going to be able to pay HMRC. Wyness, who would have known the fiduciary responsibilities that come with his role on the board, is believed to have sought insolvency advice before and after the Fulham match.

Indeed, it is understood that Wyness advised Xia, who has been in Beijing since the play-off final, of the severe consequences of failing to pay HMRC, including the prospect of Villa being placed in administration and served with a winding up petition.

HMRC, which has adopted a robust approach in recent times to the football industry, was far from impressed with Villa’s inability to pay their tax bill and not minded to cut them much slack. The club were given a 10-day extension, which expired last Tuesday.

Wyness was no longer in control of the day-to-day running of the club by the time that deadline passed, after being told via a letter that he had been suspended. The reasons for that decision have not been made public but it is believed that Xia took exception to Wyness’s views on Villa’s predicament and wants the club to investigate the chief executive’s conduct in relation to the conversations that took place about insolvency.

It is all rather strange and, worryingly for Villa fans, easy to imagine things getting worse before they get better. Even if Villa come up with the money to cover May’s HMRC bill – there are suggestions an agreement will be reached by the end of the week – another payment will be due in less than three weeks’ time and then the whole episode starts again, not overlooking the fact that there will be many other creditors to satisfy. An exodus of players, including the departure of Jack Grealish, the club’s prize asset, seems inevitable.

Although complying with the Championship’s financial fair play rules threatens to be a major issue now that Villa’s three-year-loss limit has fallen to £39m, FFP is a problem for another day. The more pressing concern is the here and now, highlighted by a sobering story in the Birmingham Mail, revealing that the club are considering selling a plot of land close to Villa Park, which is used as a staff car park, to raise a few million quid.

This is the same club that embarked on an unprecedented spending spree at Championship level the season before last, when £88m was splurged on signings. Xia was effectively placing all his claret and blue chips on winning promotion with a high-risk strategy that has badly backfired and leaves the club with a huge financial void to fill next season, with or without his funding.

How much Xia is actually worth is a matter of debate and tied in with the question of why he is no longer bankrolling Villa. A key reason put forward is that the Chinese government has clamped down on capital flight, where investors send their money out of the country, although some Villa fans could be forgiven for wondering if that is a smokescreen for other issues. The club have been approached for comment.

Reports about potential takeovers continue to give those fans a glimmer of hope that there could be a resolution, although no change of ownership is anticipated in the near future. In fact, all that can be said for sure right now is that one of England’s most famous football clubs is in an awful mess.

 


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