Randy Lerner "State of Aston Villa" Statement

[PaulWinch again]

We clearly need to do something to improve the books. I don't think that selling your best players, releasing others and reinvesting a fraction of the return is a good way to go. It's far too fast, and is shocking leadership from the board. We badly need some investment, because we are travelling backwards at an alarming rate.

[Fuse]

It is no different to the ambitions under Doug.

I am sorry but Randy needs to focus on finding us a new owner with the requisite funds to make us competitive

Thanks Randy. We thought you were great when you were spending loads, but now you aren't fuck off.

No not quite. Randy doesn't have the funds to keep ploughing money in to shore up the losses we have been making. Nor does he seem to have the magical idea (not that there necessarily is one anyway) of doubling our revenues to make us compettive and self sufficient.

So if we still want as fans to aspire to winning things the only way possible these days is to have a rich benefactor. I doubt any of us expected to be in this position when we were taken over by a Billionaire but unfortunately Randy isn't a multi-billionaire. I don't doubt he would like to keep spending but he isn't in a position to do so and therefore if he wants to leave us with a lsting legacy he will go and find someone who ahs his same best intentions but with a far bigger bank balance to play with.

[Risso]

When Lerner took over, we were told that this was going to be an exciting new era, where our profile would be raised worldwide as we did exciting deal with the likes of Nike, and how they'd use all their business skills that Doug didn't possess to make us a force in European and domestic football.

Well, the marketing of the club has probably been THE worst aspect of Lerner's tenure.  It's so bad it doesn't even deserve to be called amateurish.

[robbyfvillain]

That's one extreme interpretation but there are other ways of looking at it.

He hasn't stopped spending, he's reduced it.

The approach now, according to the letter, is to increase revenue in order to support the playing side. Of course that might all be a bluff and you're right but for now I'll trust that is what they intend.

He's been trying to do that for 5 years and has failed. Now with a weaker squad do you really feel confident he can achieve a better result. He still has no football knowledge on the board so he is equally not learning from past mistakes.

I admire your trust but with the club now loaded with a huge debt it now has to finance and a management team lacking the skill base required to run a football club I am finding it very hard to trust them.

Why do you think they need a football man on the board to raise commercial revenue? It's untrue to suggest that they haven't increased it in 5 years and they've also just signed our best ever sponsorship deal which is yet to be recognised in any published accounts.

I don't and I didn't say a football man would make a difference to the commercial activities, but I do think a football man on the board would help enormously in all sorts of areas. I was using the lack of a football man on board as evidence that they do not learn from their mistakes. Another view could be that you and they feel a football man would not make any difference and hence there is nothing to learn from.

You are correct to say that in 5 years they have not increased commercial revenues. The £3.5m it has increased by in five years is not really going to make a huge difference.

I have no idea of the value of the new sponsorship because as you say it has not yet been published. Lets hope it is truly enormous.

[Villa'Zawg]

When Lerner took over, we were told that this was going to be an exciting new era, where our profile would be raised worldwide as we did exciting deal with the likes of Nike, and how they'd use all their business skills that Doug didn't possess to make us a force in European and domestic football.

Well, the marketing of the club has probably been THE worst aspect of Lerner's tenure.  It's so bad it doesn't even deserve to be called amateurish.

In the court judgement on the Lerner $40m case, the judge said that an inappropriate email that Lerner had sent was "indicative of the frat house attitude that permeated the staff of the Lerner Fund..."

[Risso]

When Lerner took over, we were told that this was going to be an exciting new era, where our profile would be raised worldwide as we did exciting deal with the likes of Nike, and how they'd use all their business skills that Doug didn't possess to make us a force in European and domestic football.

Well, the marketing of the club has probably been THE worst aspect of Lerner's tenure.  It's so bad it doesn't even deserve to be called amateurish.

In the court judgement on the Lerner $40m case, the judge said that an inappropriate email that Lerner had sent was "indicative of the frat house attitude that permeated the staff of the Lerner Fund..."

That case has some very interesting quotes:

"Throughout this litigation, Michele Paige has insisted that the Lerner Fund sought
to withdraw its capital from the Hedge Fund not because the Fund had poor prospects,
but because the Lerner Fund was under severe economic stress as a result of the collapse
in the value of the Lerner Fund’s stake in Bank of America. According to Michele Paige,
this was confided in her by Bolandian and Rabinowitz at another in-person meeting in the
spring of 2009 at the Lerner Fund’s offices. During that meeting — the date of which
Michele Paige could not specify — she claims that Bolandian and Rabinowitz revealed to
her the dire liquidity needs of the Lerner Fund and the fact that the Lerner Fund might
need access to the capital it had invested in her Hedge Fund at a moment’s notice."

[eastie]

When Lerner took over, we were told that this was going to be an exciting new era, where our profile would be raised worldwide as we did exciting deal with the likes of Nike, and how they'd use all their business skills that Doug didn't possess to make us a force in European and domestic football.

Well, the marketing of the club has probably been THE worst aspect of Lerner's tenure.  It's so bad it doesn't even deserve to be called amateurish.

In the court judgement on the Lerner $40m case, the judge said that an inappropriate email that Lerner had sent was "indicative of the frat house attitude that permeated the staff of the Lerner Fund..."

do you have a link to the lerner case please villadawg as ive not heard about it before?

[Phil from the upper holte]

That letter sounds like the kind of bullshit that I get fed every day at work

[Villa'Zawg]

When Lerner took over, we were told that this was going to be an exciting new era, where our profile would be raised worldwide as we did exciting deal with the likes of Nike, and how they'd use all their business skills that Doug didn't possess to make us a force in European and domestic football.

Well, the marketing of the club has probably been THE worst aspect of Lerner's tenure.  It's so bad it doesn't even deserve to be called amateurish.

In the court judgement on the Lerner $40m case, the judge said that an inappropriate email that Lerner had sent was "indicative of the frat house attitude that permeated the staff of the Lerner Fund..."

do you have a link to the lerner case please villadawg as ive not heard about it before?

Delaware Litigation - Clicky

The links to the judgement are embedded within the article

[Toronto Villa]

When Lerner took over, we were told that this was going to be an exciting new era, where our profile would be raised worldwide as we did exciting deal with the likes of Nike, and how they'd use all their business skills that Doug didn't possess to make us a force in European and domestic football.

Well, the marketing of the club has probably been THE worst aspect of Lerner's tenure.  It's so bad it doesn't even deserve to be called amateurish.

I can't defend Lerner for his PR. He's done a lot of very good things for the fans, the club and it is his money at the end of the day. But we've been poor in broadening the brand as was suggested when he first came here. The biggest issue I have had with the efforts is that they've been so conservative and inconsistent. I suppose it didn't help that MON had a phobia about buying from abroad to go along with that. Aston Villa has only co much equity outside of the Midlands, so selling us abroad with our brand new Steve Sidwell or Emile Heskey signing to Japanese or American fans was never going to be easy.

I don't think it's been terrible, but it could and should have been a lot better.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Lerner's one strategy was let O'Neill do whatever he wanted, including seemingly, agreeing transfer fees and salaries.  What sort of owner acts surprised when he sees the wage bill at the end of the year?  Dreadful, dreadful mismanagement, and a piss poor way to run any sort of business.

If his investment had given him a couple more wins then qualifying for the CL would have justified it and he wouldn't be getting any of this stick. We tried one approach, it almost paid dividend and now we're trying something else

As I mentioned the other day, if our home form hadn't been so poor, we'd have qualified for the CL three years running.

[Chris Smith]

We're never going to sell ourselves to any great degree outside of our natural constituency until we win things and play in the Champions League. To be honest, I'm not too bothered about being the latest craze in downtown Kowloon but we should be cleaning up in the Midlands.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

When Lerner took over, we were told that this was going to be an exciting new era, where our profile would be raised worldwide as we did exciting deal with the likes of Nike, and how they'd use all their business skills that Doug didn't possess to make us a force in European and domestic football.

Well, the marketing of the club has probably been THE worst aspect of Lerner's tenure.  It's so bad it doesn't even deserve to be called amateurish.

In the court judgement on the Lerner $40m case, the judge said that an inappropriate email that Lerner had sent was "indicative of the frat house attitude that permeated the staff of the Lerner Fund..."

That case has some very interesting quotes:

"Throughout this litigation, Michele Paige has insisted that the Lerner Fund sought
to withdraw its capital from the Hedge Fund not because the Fund had poor prospects,
but because the Lerner Fund was under severe economic stress as a result of the collapse
in the value of the Lerner Fund’s stake in Bank of America. According to Michele Paige,
this was confided in her by Bolandian and Rabinowitz at another in-person meeting in the
spring of 2009 at the Lerner Fund’s offices. During that meeting — the date of which
Michele Paige could not specify — she claims that Bolandian and Rabinowitz revealed to
her the dire liquidity needs of the Lerner Fund and the fact that the Lerner Fund might
need access to the capital it had invested in her Hedge Fund at a moment’s notice."

I wonder if that is down to Randy sticking in there with Bank of America until they start showing a decent share price again? It would explain a lot and realistically, you couldn't blame him. Why should he dump his shares, they're certain to climb up again, especially if they spin-off Merrill Lynch. Not a nice place to be but hardly the end of the world.

[Toronto Villa]

We're never going to sell ourselves to any great degree outside of our natural constituency until we win things and play in the Champions League. To be honest, I'm not too bothered about being the latest craze in downtown Kowloon but we should be cleaning up in the Midlands.

I agree, but you can still look further afield than we did to attract players and do it that way in addition to your other goals. I think the club missed opportunities to expand in the first fives years because of the manager they employed. I know Mcleish isn't Mourinho, but at least he might still cast an eye to the continent or South America once he's cleared up a few things.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

We're never going to sell ourselves to any great degree outside of our natural constituency until we win things and play in the Champions League. To be honest, I'm not too bothered about being the latest craze in downtown Kowloon but we should be cleaning up in the Midlands.

The fans will come when there's something worth watching. It's been a very long time since there was.