The Takeover Thread - Recon Group - NOW WITH NEW POLL

[LeeS]

Yesterday I noticed BBC sport reported Bradford City had been taken over by a German Consortium - that is all it said. No scepticism about their intentions, level of funding, CV of the proposed chairman. I know its like comparing apples with sour grapes but still why all the articles about Dr Xia?

I put it down to irrational fear of the Chinese.

Talking to colleagues who work in the news there, it seems very hard to obtain real, hard information. It's not just the language, it's also the caution with which they regard the western media.

And part of that is due to the *kind* of stories that appear about them in the west. The only element that sells is the notion that China is weird, or extreme, or bizarre.

The portrayal of a businessman who wants to buy a Birmingham football club as a shifty, shadowy Bond villain would be a typical example.

 

Best solution to that one - show a journalist a piece of paper with a big number on it.

[The_ads]

Some of you need to read 'The Chimp Paradox' by Stephen Peters. It would help I promise

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Now it's the time of Forbes magazine to have their two cents..

Aston Villa And Tony Xia Are Looking Like AC Milan With Mr Bee

I have serious doubts that the sale of Aston Villa to Tony Xia is going to happen.

Why not?

Because Tony Xia is looking like Bee Taechaubol, the Thai businessman who seems to have greatly exaggerated his wealth in order to buy AC Milan from Silvia Berlusconi. Taechaubol was going to invest a lot of money in the Italian soccer team so that it could sign better players and invest in a new stadium. The idea was to grow the AC Milan brand in Asia.

Well, once push came to shove, “Mr. Bee” as he was known, didn’t have the money. Now AC Milan is about to be acquired by investors who actually have the money.

Which brings me to Aston Villa. Like AC Milan, the English team, currently owned by Randy Lerner, is losing money and needs cash to build a better roster. Pending owner Xia is promising to infuse cash into the money-losing team. They need it badly. Aston Villa are being demoted to the Championship league next year so their revenue will take a big hit.

[Malandro]

Some of you need to read 'The Chimp Paradox' by Stephen Peters. It would help I promise

My wife has it on her bedside table. What puts me off, it says on the front "helped me win my Olympic gold" - Redgrave, I think.
She's enjoying it.

[paul_e]

All of this (except maybe the education bit which really isn't important)

You were challenging people the other day to show you one lie, just one lie, that Tony had told. Now you're dismissing this particular one as unimportant. Then there's the bit about him being a Villa fan for years. 2 fibs contained in his opening salvo to Villa fans doesn't make me feel overly confident about the rest of his story

I wonder whether you're trying to convince us or yourself that Tone's a straight sort of guy?

So you've decided that he was lying about about his education with no evidence, this sums up the problem, far too many people who just want to find something wrong.  There are others who have legitimate concerns but those are being overshadowed by nonsense.

As for the Villa fan thing, who really gives a shit?  It wa s throw away line in the statement that I'm fairly certain no one took seriously.  Add to that the subsequent admission that he attended 1 game whilst he was at Oxford and I can see someone in the club's PR department deciding that the one game is enough to make him a long-time fan and it's probably not something he ever said.

His education isn't important in the context because it makes no difference to his ability to buy us or run us well.

[Dave Javu]

So you've decided that he was lying about about his education with no evidence, this sums up the problem, far too many people who just want to find something wrong.  There are others who have legitimate concerns but those are being overshadowed by nonsense.

....

His education isn't important in the context because it makes no difference to his ability to buy us or run us well.

So if his education was as he says and he's a proper "Dr.", why on earth would he block access to the verifiable source that could have easily cleared that up?

Alternately, let's now assume that he's told a fib. By itself, it's not the worst fib in the world, but my next question would be: what else is he prepared to fib about in order to gain our confidence?

Tone can easily clear this one up, can't he?

[Chico Hamilton III]

All of this (except maybe the education bit which really isn't important)

You were challenging people the other day to show you one lie, just one lie, that Tony had told. Now you're dismissing this particular one as unimportant. Then there's the bit about him being a Villa fan for years. 2 fibs contained in his opening salvo to Villa fans doesn't make me feel overly confident about the rest of his story

I wonder whether you're trying to convince us or yourself that Tone's a straight sort of guy?

So you've decided that he was lying about about his education with no evidence, this sums up the problem, far too many people who just want to find something wrong.  There are others who have legitimate concerns but those are being overshadowed by nonsense.

As for the Villa fan thing, who really gives a shit?  It wa s throw away line in the statement that I'm fairly certain no one took seriously.  Add to that the subsequent admission that he attended 1 game whilst he was at Oxford and I can see someone in the club's PR department deciding that the one game is enough to make him a long-time fan and it's probably not something he ever said.

His education isn't important in the context because it makes no difference to his ability to buy us or run us well.

Only in the same way that you seem happy to swallow everything you're told even though there's no evidence to support much of it

We'd be pissing ourselves if this was Blues

[Ads]

Did his professor from Harvard confirm his credentials?

[Ads]

In respect of that Forbes article I have seen it described elsewhere as click bait re-hash nonsense and I would agree.

Somewhere, there are a few journalists hopefully finding things out. There's been one or two interviews but in the main it's all.insinuation and supposition with a lot of "it doesn't seem right". Heavens forbid the Mail actually got Evans to do his job.

[paul_e]

So you've decided that he was lying about about his education with no evidence, this sums up the problem, far too many people who just want to find something wrong.  There are others who have legitimate concerns but those are being overshadowed by nonsense.

....

His education isn't important in the context because it makes no difference to his ability to buy us or run us well.

So if his education was as he says and he's a proper "Dr.", why on earth would he block access to the verifiable source that could have easily cleared that up?

Alternately, let's now assume that he's told a fib. By itself, it's not the worst fib in the world, but my next question would be: what else is he prepared to fib about in order to gain our confidence?

Tone can easily clear this one up, can't he?

We have no idea why he's blocked his educational record, that's the simple truth, I don't know why he's done it but then nor does anyone else on here.

The issue is some people have decided that he's done it so he can lie and not have the lie checked up on and won't ever believe it's not that until he makes his education public.

He may want his foreign education to sound more mysterious in his Chinese business dealings so he hides the details giving himself full control over what people know about him, so he'll drop MIT, Harvard and Oxford into conversation and use the title but keep it vague.  That's completely made up off the top of my head now but it's just as plausible as him locking it so that, at some point, he could buy a football club and lie in the press release.

[chrisf]

Did his professor from Harvard confirm his credentials?

According to the journo he did in an email. The same professor who's listed on the Harvard website and on the xwho website.
The doubts about his academic qualifications appear to stem from a misreading of his bio on the xwho website. It's claimed that says he was a professor at Harvard but the bio says nothing of the sort.

[Ads]

So somebody has incorrectly taken down some information and it's now been used as evidence of him lying? Lulz.

[DaveD]

Apparently he worked at MIT as a cleaner and solved mathematical equations left on blackboards.

[Stirchley Villain]

So you've decided that he was lying about about his education with no evidence, this sums up the problem, far too many people who just want to find something wrong.  There are others who have legitimate concerns but those are being overshadowed by nonsense.

....

His education isn't important in the context because it makes no difference to his ability to buy us or run us well.

So if his education was as he says and he's a proper "Dr.", why on earth would he block access to the verifiable source that could have easily cleared that up?

Alternately, let's now assume that he's told a fib. By itself, it's not the worst fib in the world, but my next question would be: what else is he prepared to fib about in order to gain our confidence?

Tone can easily clear this one up, can't he?

I've worked with hundreds of proper doctors throughout the course of my career and wouldn't want many of them to run Aston Villa.

[Malandro]

Apparently he worked at MIT as a cleaner and solved mathematical equations left on blackboards.

I'm wondering if we should ask Dr Butler for his credentials