Well, it’s all happening, isn’t it?
That’s if you believe what’s being said in the media.
First and most important, is that we’ve done a deal with the tax man.
There’s no surprise there, as his only aim is to get the money. It doesn’t suit anyone to close the club down.
Whether we can meet the tight payment dates is a different story and Xia has apparently had to get a loan, to give us a brief respite.
What we have to pay tax for is a question in itself, given that we’ve lost millions for years, But I don’t do the books.
You’d have to assume it’s VAT.
Next, there’s the rumour that because we will have to sell everyone, we might be forced to bring Gabby back.
I nearly wet myself laughing when I read that one, as you might as well sign me.
Hence that one is totally ignored, although I do appreciate someone’s sense of humour.
It seems we have six clubs interested in signing Jack Grealish.
While I’m not at all convinced that we’ll let him go, so I’m also convinced that we might not have a choice.
The word is that Jack is willing to give us another chance and will stay for the next season.
To which, I say fair play.
That’s the true Villa fan in him coming out and is pretty much what I’ve asked of him.
If we fail next season, he’d be fully entitled to walk away, with my blessing.
Steve Bruce is apparently being chased by Leeds.
Their fans apparently don’t want him, but it seems it doesn’t matter anyway, as the club are now close to agreeing terms with Bielsa.
Was that one designed to make Bielsa’s agent get a move on? Probably.
Chester is also being chased at around £8 million, which I’d say isn’t too bad a deal.
I’d be disappointed if he left, as I think he’s been excellent for us, but if needs must etc….
Bjarnason is also wanted and if he’s not going to feature regularly, that’s a good thing too, although I’d rather see Jedinak leave if it comes to cutting costs.
I think there are rumours that Southampton want to totally take the mick, in wanting our kids on the cheap.
I’ll bet money that it won’t happen and I didn’t even bother looking past the headlines.
Oh, we might sell the car park on Tame road. There was planning permission granted for housing a while back, but we didn’t do anything about it.
That might bring in a few million, but it won’t happen quickly, so would have to be forward-sold again, if we truly are that desperate.
From memory, we had about £25 mill worth of land we could possibly flog off, but I wonder if at least some of it might be contaminated?
There was a rumour that we might sell BMH, but if we do, I’d guess that would be more down to HS2.
Whatever, as I suggested in the last post, we haven’t gone boobs up just yet and I don’t think we will, at all.
Something will happen to prevent it, trust me.
If the Villa were to go bump, it would be a massive admission that the whole game is ruined, after all.
The Mirror said basically the same thing, albeit from a totally opposite point of view.;
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/aston-villas-reckless-pursuit-premier-12663802
We’ll be okay.
We aren’t quite asking the fans to paint the stands, as happened with our last crash, just yet, are we?
Comments
66 responses to “Meltdown update; What (we think) we know.”
I’m sure I remember reading that Bree tripled his wages, coming to Villa and I mentioned it at the time.
We had to take a bit of a gamble to get the players in, but, well……
TEST
does anybody know who is responsible for handing out the wages and lengths of them. i understand we had to attract them. but spending vast amounts to bring in championship players is a massive risk, but handing out premiership wages and long durations means the players can’t be sold so easy, the duration of contracts exceeds the parachutes payments.
all i ask is somebody look through the signings we done since being in championship. lots complained they were not good enough. but thats not the issue for me, its the wages and length of contracts handed out. they can not be sustained without premiership money.
now we will have to sell our only assets to pay for the wages. because nobody else in championship will match their wages, i think i am gonna bury my head n the sand, like hitch and the person who handed them contracts out.
Wyness has to prove constructive dismissal first then the matter of compensation is decided. It’s reported his salary was c£330k so I don’t really see where these figures of £6m come from. If he proves it then he’s entitled to compensation taking into account his salary, pension etc. and the likelihood of being reimployed. I’m not an expert but £6m looks way off the mark to me?
Nonetheless, it’s beginning to look as if Xia didn’t like to be told the hard truth that suggest his business is in meltdown. Of course he may hold Wyness as CEO culpable for the mess we are in and if Wyness did suggest administration as the only solution then Xia was goaded into finding a (at least short term) solution in securing a £6m loan.
I would be surprised if Xia didn’t put up a robust response to Wyness but whatever the outcome it continues to be more bad press for our club – and haven’t we, as fans, had to put up with more that our fair share over the past six years?
Wyness might struggle with constructive dismissal. If the club was following it’s own disciplinary procedure, and it is up to date, and whatever Wyness did or didn’t do warranted suspension pending an internal investigation then the club should be OK. Wyness may just be trying to force a decent compensation package to avoid Xia being tied up in legal stuff. He would need to argue that the suspension, or some action in the process made his return untenable.
Who knows?
We are in the mire though.
The simple fact is that if we struggled to pay the £3M to HMRC the next crunch is soon coming. The current wage bill for players alone is around £3M a month with no match day income at the moment. That’s without all the other staff and running costs. Unless a parachute or sponsorship payment is imminent that spells trouble.
The short term solution that would buy time is the sale of players. The worry is that the most saleable are the ones the team would find hardest to replace. It would arguably make the club less attractive to buy as well.
What a mess.
According to teamtalk, Chelsea have offered 30 mil for Grealish, but will loan him back to us next season as part of the deal…
That would probably be our best result.
If true that’s an offer it would be hard for the club to resist.
This is it CA Villan.
Jack Grealish is a target for London giants Chelsea, according to reports.
The Stamford Bridge giants are the latest club to be linked with a move for the Villa youngster and TEAMtalk are reporting that a £30m deal is on the table for Villa with the option of Grealish heading back to Villa on loan for the coming season.
They are the latest club to be linked with a move for Grealish and join the likes of Leicester, Newcastle, Everton, Spurs and West Ham.
Fulham – the team who defeated Aston Villa in the play-off final to trigger financial chaos at Villa Park – have also been linked with a shock summer move.
Highly-rated 22-year-old Grealish is expected to move on this summer as Tony Xia and his trusted Villa Park associates desperately try to raise funds. as for Wyness he is sueing Two other Villa staff, it well might be what Nath mentioned who sanctioned the players money.
This should end all speculation over Bruce going.
Marcelo Bielsa is expected to be announced as manager of Leeds United, ending any links with Steve Bruce taking over at Elland Road.
Tony Xia,words,
Tony Xia is looking for a £30million investment to help ease Aston Villa’s financial problems, BirminghamLive can reveal.
The Chinese owner wants a huge cash injection in exchange for a negotiable percentage of equity.
It’s understood that he will even consider selling-up, but only if he can get what he paid for the club in 2016.
Xia had made changes to Villa M&A at Companies House, filed in the last week (but dated 25 May – when did Wyness get suspended?). They seem directed at blowing changes in the share ownership of the club. maybe you could take a look Hitch as you seem to have more experience in that area than me?
Sorry I can’t seem to post a workable link
Allowing not blowing
Hi DS – will if I get opportunity – off to Madrid so a bit time pressed. I assume he has created more shares in some way which can be sold to new investors thus increasing shareholder funds. Anyway he will be diluting the value of his shares in doing so as the overall value of the company remains unchanged. I assume he is also including some terms in relation to a form of shareholder agreement.
I did suggest in a previous post that this would be a workable solution with Xia retaining a majority shareholding.
OLL might also be in a position to comment.
DS been on Companies House web site and can’t find the changes you refer to – not showing on filing details. Wyness was formally ‘removed’ on 12th June.
Where did you read Mems & Arts being changed?
On a Twitter feed sourced through Newsnow. I’ll see if I can track and cut/paste
You can see under company number 03375789 Aston Villa Football Club. Recorded on June 7th. Wyness termination filed today.
Work starting at Body More Heath September.
Part of Bodymoor Heath, Aston Villa’s training ground
According to the plans Villa have submitted, the idea is to move all the academy pitches and two first team pitches, which will be lost once construction of the high speed rail development begins.
The club also plans to replace car parking and service areas that will also be lost due to the development and have submitted plans to North Warwickshire Borough Council’s planning committee.
The design and access statement submitted with the applications read: “HS2 will have a devastation effect on Aston Villa Football Clubs integrated football academy and first team facilities that have been at Bodymoor Heath since the 1970s.
“As a direct result of this proposed work, the facility will physically lose three academy football pitches and all of its access and servicing infrastructure.
READ MORE
Stan Collymore in the words of his managers
“The remaining academy pitches are blighted by noise. All academy pitches are required to be co-located for training or teaching.
“It is believed by the club advisors that some of the First Team playing surfaces, will also need to be relocated away from the anticipated noise affecting Speech Intelligibility.
“Therefore it is proposed to co-locate and replace all of the lost academy pitches and training areas and infrastructure on a portion of the former quarry land to the north of the site and the far side of Coneybury Wood.
“It is essential to the future of the football club that it retains its status and the quality of its First Team Facilities.”
Villa lodged a multi-million pound compensation claim last when they first discovered the news of the HS2 route
Replying to Hitchens and Bill. I have no more information sources about Villa’s financial structure. I have never believed Xia owned the £400M deposit allegedly put in an escrow account before take over. I have always assumed he is a front man because none of the Chinese businesses which are listed, and which he controls, make enough money to have made him a billionaire.
if he is a front man it would explain the melt down post Wembley. Because if he has backers with only knowledge of how China works, they would have expected promotion to be in the bag, the result of the match fixed beforehand. It would also tally with Xia’s alleged willingness to sell up, if he can get out with his money in a UK account.
I shall jump for joy if Villa can sell the whole BMH complex to the HS2 authorities and move to another training facility. BMH is cursed, we have been going downhill since we got it.
In reply to OLL, I can only quote our own Toyah Willcox – It’s a mystery……….
OLL,
All that makes sense now, when Xia took charge the word got out that he was fronting for Chinese investors and had x amount money to invest., it now looks like he as shot himself in the foot. His goal now is to get most of his money back at all cost.
brentford combative midfielder woods 6mill to baggies i would love to see if they other him a 30 k to 40 k wage i very much doubt it.
clubs are sorting their squads out for next season. nothing like giving the opposition a head start. we can afford it cant we.
where are we today. still no good news, just more depressing bad news. no preparations for future. the club will limb into league 1 with sunderland at this rate. we reek of defeatist. manager is he staying or going nobody knows. sacking of the board member and now suing us. Drx selling club or not if we get a offer to match his input. the players will lap this up. mccormack will struggle even more with training as his gate taller next season.
we is foo ked
selling off grealish will do nothing for the club only benefit drX he will use the 30 mill to pay the wages until he finds a buyer.
If Xia can’t inject funds we need this to happen or it’s administration. It would buy some time, hopefully enough to find a buyer.
My fear is Xia selling to get his money back and us having to suffer the consequences, I’ve a sneaking suspicion he’s been fronting his position and he’s at a stage where he has to show his hand to his consortium. We have not heard a word from him personally about what he going to do, its all papers making up fake news. Come on Xia we are Villa fans and we need to see how you are going to get us out of the Brown stuff they created by going along with money grabbing advisors .give Bruce his answer his he in a job or not, and let him repair the damage.
There’s not much point anybody buying Aston Villa for a significant sum if they can’t fund a team that will have a fair crack at promotion. If anyone does buy us it would suggest they have a plan to improve the finances so we are competitive.
The hits keep coming today… EFL is now stepping in and is trying to assist the club in any “appropriate” way and Spurs have offered 15m for Grealish (a slap in the face).
i said spuds would sign grealish before the carnage started. but i don’t believe that villa should sell him to them. in fact this one transaction could well determine our future and path we are heading down.
i know many love chester and i do like him, but if we can get 10 million for him at his age then he should be sacrificed, grealish while he needs to go for his own career. i think with him we have a chance next season to finally get promotion.
we just need to flog some old players like adomah chester whelen kodjia surely we could sell these and replace them with green murphy doyle hayes / chester would need replacing with a decent loan. but with the utd player returning to younger mobile defenders. our whole game can be more offensive.
if we could sell kodjia and dare i say mccormack or hogan we could try to loan Tammy Abraham who done good in championship replacing kodija at bristrol. but key to next season is grealish 15 million is waste of time. you should sell chester.
Looks like Hutton has signed for another year, on reduced wages. Fair play to him…
I’m pleased that Hutton has signed a new 12 month contract on massively reduced wages. He said our fans was the biggest reason for staying on. It also makes me wonder if the cash flow problems have been exaggerated because we could have just let him go without any reaction from fans. Maybe it also means Bruce will be staying on because he said that he wanted Hutton to stay. The first promising day we have had since play off final. Hopefully we won’t hear much more doom and gloom now till new season starts. Next thing I want to hear is a shove it in the direction of Levy, and Xia tweeting that Grealish is going nowhere.
Apparently taken a big pay cut to stay – maybe not all footballers are mercernaries. Are you listening Richards, McCormack etc.?
Oops – sorry Holte – missed that you had picked up wage cut in your first sentence! In Madrid at present; one of my favourite cities – too much vinho!
This is an interesting development and welcome news I think (other than for OLL!) – according to the Brum Mail, Hutton has signed a further year’s contract with Villa.
See Fulham are interested in Jordan Ayew – hope he goes there and secures a hat trick – three relegations in three seasons!
hutton signs extension hmmmmm interesting, should be a sign to leeds and spuds two wanna big clubs that we are not as desperate as they thought. maybe we should bid for spuds players like ali must be worth 1mill
elphick is on his way to reading, leaving us with one centre back chester who himself could be off soon. at least better signs about villa today.