Fans Worried Over Villa Future

[Tokyo Sexwhale]

The Times article in full:

Peter B Freund, a minority shareholder in baseball’s New York Yankees, is preparing to make a formal offer to buy Aston Villa for £75 million as the club face up to the threat of going into administration.

Keith Wyness, the chief executive, was suspended yesterday after a disagreement with the owner Tony Xia, who is understood to have taken umbrage at his most senior employee’s advice to settle a £4.2 million tax bill owed to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) to avoid a winding-up order.

Xia has been in China since Villa’s Championship play-off final defeat by Fulham ten days ago, which plunged the club into financial turmoil, but last night announced he was taking over as chief executive until further notice. The 41-year-old is understood to have been searching for new investors for several weeks as a contingency plan in case Villa failed to win promotion, and talks with Freund are expected to accelerate after Wyness’s suspension.

During initial negotiations Xia is understood to have valued Villa at £100 million, although given the club’s severe financial problems and struggles to pay creditors such as HMRC he has yet to receive an offer that matches his valuation.

The club need to make savings of about £40 million next season to avoid being fined for breaching the Football League’s Financial Fair Play rules and have had significant cash-flow problems in recent weeks, which has led to infighting, culminating in yesterday’s dramatic events.

Xia is understood to have spent £140 million on Villa, including his £76 million purchase from Randy Lerner two years ago, with his valuation of £100 million reflecting his desire to recoup the majority of that investment. Xia does not have financial problems of his own, with his net worth estimated at £1 billion, but has struggled to get money out of China recently due to stricter foreign exchange controls imposed by the government. The Times has been told that he has not provided any fresh funding to Villa for the past three months.

There are a number of parties interested in buying Villa, including at least one British group, with Freund putting together a US consortium in which he would take a majority share. The American has been looking at adding an English football club to his [size=150]Trinity Sports Holdings[/size] (TSH) company for some time, a group that has a stake in the Yankees, as well as owning a number of Minor League baseball clubs. TSH have also signed an expansion agreement with the United States Soccer League to enter new club Memphis City in the league next year. Freund is the president of Trinity Packaging Corp, a plastics manufacturer, which began as a family business in New York in 1917.

Trevor Birch, the former administrator and Chelsea chief executive, has been consulted on cost-cutting, but is not involved in sale process. Xia’s cashflow problems have been compounded by Villa’s spending in attempting to return to the Premier League, with John Terry being paid a salary of £60,000 a week last season.

Wyness is understood to have held crisis talks with Xia over the HMRC issue yesterday which culminated in his suspension. There is no suggestion that Wyness has been accused of wrongdoing.

Villa are confident the tax issue will be resolved, but the club still face a summer of significant cuts. They have already reduced costs by releasing Terry and have ruled out the return of high-profile loanees including Robert Snodgrass. That could mean a promotion to the first team of several of the club’s academy graduates.

Steve Bruce has expressed a wish to remain as manager but a statement last week from Xia offered no guarantees about his future. News of Wyness’s suspension will be of concern to Bruce, who counted the chief executive among his most vocal supporters behind the scenes.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/american-peter-b-freund-lines-up-75m-bid-to-buy-aston-villa-2wpdkfwzd

[Toronto Villa]

It wouldn't be modern day Villa without a good summer takeover story. And it's not a crisis until I see the Mail torn crest

[Drummond]

No CEO, no Captain, no money.

No manager(?), new owner(?), no stars(?).

We've great History, Tradition and Pride.

And our fans are the best nationwide.

Right now, it's causing us pain.

But the Villa will rise strong again.

[Drummond]

p.s. Can we ditch the poll on this thread now please? It takes up so much screen real estate on the mobile version it's ridiculous.

[PeterWithesShin]

Hopefully the new poll with fewer options is better.

[olaftab]

Can we also stop double spacing it takes  up so much screen real estate😉

[Damo70]

I don’t think he’s got any more insight than reading this thread.

We'll find out pretty soon, but there is an awful lot of smoke around for there to be no fire.

I have been in hospital for a couple of days but on hearing the news on the way back home tonight my first thought was it was being over dramatised. As the evening has worn on I unfortunately have to agree with your 'too much smoke for there to be no fire' theory.

[Matt Collins]

No more snake oil salesmen. No more quick fixes. We're going to have to take our medicine and it won't taste nice. But if we'd bitten the bullet ten years ago and pursued a sustainable path we'd be in a far better position now. Fans wouldn't have accepted it. Hope they would now

[PeterWithe]

I don’t think he’s got any more insight than reading this thread.

We'll find out pretty soon, but there is an awful lot of smoke around for there to be no fire.

I have been in hospital for a couple of days but on hearing the news on the way back home tonight my first thought was it was being over dramatised. As the evening has worn on I unfortunately have to agree with your 'too much smoke for there to be no fire' theory.

My point was more that the Mirror journalist had found out nothing more than simply reading the contents of this thread. Every snippet was directly from here.

[Ad@m]

To be fair, when Lambert came in that was the plan. Loads of the kids got thrown in and it resulted in lots of new club records for all the wrong reasons (8-0 at Chelsea anyone?).

[ozzjim]

I said to my old man last night, I don't care what division we are in next season, I just want to watch Villa playing decent football with pride in the shirt. We will be back, we are not going to be liquidated etc, because someone will buy us and improve the situation, because we are Aston Villa. Much like Leeds have been through the wringer we are going through it, but the fans will still be there and so will the club. We can get through this, keep our heads up and hopefully watch a really talented group of kids help us prosper.

[kippaxvilla2]

Be not afeard. The Villa is full of surprises,

Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.

Sometimes a thousand dangling idiots,

Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices,

That if I then had waked after long sleep

Will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming

The clouds methought would open and show riches

Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked

I cried to dream again."

[martin o`who??]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-5809685/Aston-Villa-turmoil-failure-pay-tax-bill-5m.html


Nice to see a bit of positivity about the place. 

[Drummond]

Can we also stop double spacing it takes  up so much screen real estate😉

Touché!

[Matt Collins]

To be fair, when Lambert came in that was the plan. Loads of the kids got thrown in and it resulted in lots of new club records for all the wrong reasons (8-0 at Chelsea anyone?).

That's kind of my point. That 8-0 defeat was some bad tasting medicine

In a parallel universe maybe we went down that year. And came back up 2-3 years later with a team containing Steer,. lowton, Clark, Bennett, westwood, delph, Albrighton, Robinson, Johnson, grealish and some previous ly unknown players that many thought were "below us" when we bought them