Potential Chinese takeover

This week The Mirror has been reporting that a Chinese consortium is eyeing up a complete takeover of Aston Villa Football Club at the end of the season.

In the article, the writer states: “MirrorSport understands the consortium already have representatives in England and are doing due diligence ahead of completing a Villa deal in early June.”

Apparently, the consortium’s representatives have also been looking at West Bromwich Albion as a back-up and if we believe the rumours it seems they are determined to buy a Premier League club.

It will take no-one by surprise that the rumours about who will own the club in the future have started again, although Aston Villa officials have reportedly dismissed the latest rumour as being “well wide of the mark”. Lerner declared that the club was up for sale at the end of last season. Although it has not been the greatest of seasons, to say the least, I think the absence of mid-season owner speculation has prevented this year being even worse.

Now we know who our manager will be next season and if we continue in our current form and end this season on a high then I’d like to think we know who a lot of the players we will have next season are too. After all, if we win the FA Cup and stay in the Premier League we will have silverware, status and European football. Isn’t that what players want?

So it is possible our on-pitch season could end on a massive high. How will that affect the dealings off the pitch and in the board room? We would definitely be a more attractive commodity for potential buyers, certainly a better one than West Bromwich Albion.

If the rumours are true about this Chinese consortium then I have mixed feelings. Firstly, of course, we want owners who will be able to invest and back the manager so that everyone can reap the rewards. It may be too idealistic to say this in the context of modern football but we want an owner who knows the game. As much as we may dislike Lerner now, there was something in him at the start that got us all excited. Doug Ellis has said several times he could have sold the club for more but wanted to offload it to someone he thought would be responsible. That’s what we need again. I just hope Lerner has built enough affection up for the club to stop him from simply flogging it to the highest bidder.

We do not want a situation like the one at QPR, a club that is seemingly rich but struggling. Rangers only seem to attract players drawn by money, which means that they have lots of individuals in their team.

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The brilliant picture above, taken in the Wembley changing room, of almost all our boys celebrating shows the great team spirit they have under Sherwood. We do not want that being undone by rich owners who want to do it all their own way.

A balance needs to be achieved. We need an owner with money who is willing to invest but who is also accepting of the idea that others already at the club are the football people and prepared to leave the job of bringing success to Aston Villa to them.

The way things are going at the moment, it appears that success will come, perhaps even sooner than we had hoped. Let’s keep it that way regardless of whether or not a big money takeover happens. After all, we are talking about Aston Villa, a big club where there are big ambitions.

 

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3 comments

  1. I agree with what you are saying. I remember Lerner saying at the start of the season about wanting to sell the club to someone who has the ambition to support Villa as a team and not just see Villa as an investment. I still think that an American club will take us over.

  2. You can’t have an owner that will invest – ffp means the maximum losses you can make are circa £30m over 3 years I believe. Therefore you have to have an owner that is smart: can grow commercial revenues (to allow investment) and can understand that you need footballing input. Whilst signing the biggest and best is a good start it doesn’t necessarily guarantee success anyway – QPR is the perfect example and our recent defeat of Liverpool further highlights this. It is about getting the right balance – a combination of experience and youth (include a home grown element) – and getting them all to buy into the club. All of this requires a manager that is capable of seeing both – from the last few months it looks like Tim has this ability. The latter is where the fan base is also important as, whilst ticket sales are a small piece in the financial jigsaw, the passionate support of the fans can be a huge piece in providing the right backdrop for the creation of team spirit.

  3. Personally, I am not sure this is going to be a step in the right direction. I work for a Chinese company and their concept of management is woeful. I hope I am wrong but this could mean bad things if Villa become Chinese owned.

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