Parallels with Leeds

[Risso]

What happens if we do go down? Leeds needed Champions League football, we need Premier League football at least.

We use the parachute payments and Randy's not inconsiderable wealth to consolidate our position, and then use our wealth of talent amongst our yoofs to launch a promotion bid.

Stop. Fucking. Panicking.

Stop overreacting.  We owe a shedload of money to Randy's trust and in a few years it needs to be paid back.  In the meantime, if the trustees decide that he can't have any more cash, what then?  Aren't we allowed to ask difficult questions anymore?

I don't think it's panicking to speculate about what might happen if we go down given the position we're in.

[Dave Cooper please]

What happens if we do go down? Leeds needed Champions League football, we need Premier League football at least.

We use the parachute payments and Randy's not inconsiderable wealth to consolidate our position, and then use our wealth of talent amongst our yoofs to launch a promotion bid.

Stop. Fucking. Panicking.

Stop overreacting.  We owe a shedload of money to Randy's trust and in a few years it needs to be paid back.  In the meantime, if the trustees decide that he can't have any more cash, what then?  Aren't we allowed to ask difficult questions anymore?

I don't think it's panicking to speculate about what might happen if we go down given the position we're in.

Eh? How am I overreacting, surely that's your bag?

The only way we'll do a "Leeds" is if Randy ships out completely and calls in all his outlay, is there anything you have seen from him so far that makes you think he will do that?

[Risso]

I've never mentioned Leeds, I'm just asking some questions that I think we as Villa fans should be interested in.  Because of the way Randy structures his finances, it's almost impossible to find out any information as we could when the club was a plc.  As for whether he's planning to take his ball home, who knows.  I don't imagine that the er, plan for what happens in the first five years of his ownership included the possibility of relegation so all of this is uncharted territory.  It wouldn't  completely surprise me if he was to sell up, although I wouldn't say it's likely.  I can't see that we'll ever achieve Champions League football under him, certainly not in the next 2-3 years anyway.  We're then approaching the time that he has to repay his trust, so I'd like to know what happens then if we're still making big losses.

[Big Dick Edwards]

There's no comparison whatsoever. Leeds were financially mismanaged to a frightening degree.
Should we be relegated (which I don't think we will), we would lose Ashley Young and possibly Downing and Dunne but we have a backbone now of young home grown talent that would help bring us straight back.

[sfx412]

Interesting thread if only for the information that Randy is under the control of some unknown entity, his family trust will seemingly bankrupt the club to get their funds back and he is now classed in the same level of financial accumen and assets as a loud mouthed joke of a bloke who has flitted from one financial disaster to the next.

But then we did win away from home in an early round of the FA Cup so I shouldn't be too surprised

[Risso]

Interesting thread if only for the information that Randy is under the control of some unknown entity, his family trust will seemingly bankrupt the club to get their funds back and he is now classed in the same level of financial accumen and assets as a loud mouthed joke of a bloke who has flitted from one financial disaster to the next.

But then we did win away from home in an early round of the FA Cup so I shouldn't be too surprised

The fact is that our funding IS controlled by a largely unknown entity.

[Drummond]

We're absolutely nothing like Leeds.

It seems to me that some people will pick at absolutely anything they can to find fault with the club, it's owner and manager. Does it really make you feel better to think everything about the club is rubbish and to revel in a lack of success? Because there's no doubt that's how it seems.

[Ads]

I don’t think we’ll go down at all. I don’t think it will even be close, despite the internetz collective will that this happens.

I don't think we're anything like Leeds. I don't think we'll ever see Second or Third division football again, despite the internetz collective will that this happens.

I think we’ll spend some money in this window and I think we’ll spend more in a larger re-structure in the Summer, despite the internetz received wisdom that we’re skint.

[Ads]

Isn’t the Lerner trust a Bare Trust anyway, with the two trustees being Randy and his sister, with the remainder in the name of their issue?

[Risso]

Isn’t the Lerner trust a Bare Trust anyway, with the two trustees being Randy and his sister, with the remainder in the name of their issue?

Where did you see that it was a bare trust?  You can't be a trustee and a beneficiary anyway, surely.