There have been a few rumours going around this week that the most potential buy is Larry Ellison, the 5th richest man in the world. Ellisons net worth is roughly £28.45 billion. These rumours start after Larry Ellison was seen at Villa Park watching the 3-1 victory over Hull City. There are a couple of theories as to why Ellison was seen at Villa Park, he either enjoys Premier League football, wanted to buy Aston Villa or Hull City…
Even more recently some (light) rumours are emerging that Aston Villa might be taken over by the Oracle group, which is Ellison’s company. On top of that, Jurgan Klinsmann, current US manager would take Paul Lambert’s job after the World Cup. Klinsmann is a good manager, he’s managed Bayern Munich, Germany and most recently United States. More interesting Klinsmann has been linked with the Aston Villa managerial role more than one occasion.
Obviously these are just rumours and fans will know about the future of their club by next week (hopefully!). Either way there will be change this summer, whether it will be just owner, board or the entire hierarchy of Villa.
Do you honestly think if the 5th richest man was at VP, there would be more confirmed sightings of him? Come on. Someone made a photoshop of Ellison that was going around twitter and that’s where the rumour came from. He is buying the LA Clippers Basketball team anyway.
Also, Klinsmann recently signed a new deal with the US national team. He’s gone on record several times saying he is settled in the US and has no intention of moving.
I can confidently say this rumour is 100% bollocks.
We all want a takeover to happen but too many people are getting carried away.
What a load of rubbish.
Agreed lets not get carried away. Changes and improvements need to be made but the owner we currently have has enough cash to make things happen and for reasons i can just about agree with he has tightened the purse strings. If randy doesn’t sell i want be to disappointed. If he was to commit a wage cap at say 40 to 50k then we can attract the right calibre of player.for now!
i personally believe randy gives a decent war chest and also believe that a club shouldn’t have to fork out every season. I would be happy with 20 mill a season with other season being a little less or more given our circumstances. This summer may be a market we need to spend a little more say 25 mill to buy 2 or 3 quaility players. Perhaps a CAM, CDM and a right back would be nice and see were we are in January.
a change we can all agree needs to be made is Faulkner needs to go and a director of football needs to be appointed. The manager needs to go of course now. To much negativity would linger with lambert now. Under different circumstances it could of worked with him.
if new ownership does arrive, it would be par for the course if the existing hierarchy all got the boot. its just standard procedure almost.
but you just reminded me again of the faulkner thing.
As aston villa CEO ..
what were his biggest failings?
what was the extent of his football remit?
how has he compared to CEO’s at other premier league clubs/ can we name those CEOS and their achievements?
I am still totally lost as to why he gets so much abuse, Other than the fact that he was hired specifically by Lerner.
I’ll believe it when I see it, let’s just wait & see what Randolphs got to say.
I wouldn’t count your chickens pal even so the rumours are flattering for AVFC and that would be amazing if it happened.Lerner is a bullshitting tit and probably was trying to sell season tickets with the lure or dangling carrot of take over money and higher class of player n manager through the media.I say again I urge everyone not to renew ST or go down villa park or buy merchandise till the present regime including chairman have all gone UTV
Tbh jd I don’t know what to believe anymore mate, until I see it happening then Yes.
On the one hand if somebody wanted to buy a premier league club villa must be an attractive option. All the infrastructure is in place, down to the bones squad and large fan base.
On the other hand will this nightmare never end. I can see Lerners statement saying something like – it has been a difficult year with injuries etc but we are happy that we are making progress and to rub salt into the wounds that famous saying “we’ll go again”.
Dunno about u Steve, but I fucking hate that “phrase de jour”. I do, do, do hope you’re predictions are wrong!!!! So miserable.
I can see Lerner saying”Now onto addressing my tenure now the season is over”.”I am happy to announce a new season with all including Paul Lambert at AVFC.”It has been testing times with takeover rumours but I am happy to say you can rest easy as I will be here present at the club for years to come”.Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhh
spot on JayDee, these rumours are complete bullshit, we are stuck with stingy Lerner, clueless Lambert and,,,, well words just cannot describe the buffoon Faulkner….
Lerner will make us wait until season ticket sales are so shite, then come out with a statement “although we are on a better financial footing, this needs to improve even more and he thanks everyone for their support and looks forward to a bright future” he has no feeling of reality because he is never at VP and the the chuckle brothers tell him everything is fantastic…
Even Lerner isn’t that blind. That’s why he stays away from VP.
True but remember in real terms Ellison is not worth 28 billion as 95% of his fortune are in charitable trusts which leaves him around 1.5 billion which isn’t much more than Lerner. Still a lot of money but not going to be the sugar daddy we all hoped for. I personally think Lerner will stay but someone like Ellison may be an additional investor. Basically I don’t want US ownership This is the reason why the B team is being mooted so eventually there will be no relegation like in America. This protects the investments of American owners which are taking over. If relegation goes then we would be planted at the bottom this season and left to rot
American ownership isn’t that bad. No worse than Asian or rich European ownership. Roma and Liverpool are great examples of quality ownership. Cagliari are set for American ownership based on the ability of building a new stadium. Few are bad, of course, but then that can clearly be said about any nationality. Personally I have a bigger feeling it’ll be Philip Anschutz than Ellison myself. And he’s very well known in America for what he’s done for the sport.
Yep he’s done a lot in the cheap no thanks
Why does everyone seem to keep mentioning what these people are worth….?? And this rumour of these two is already weeks old, spoke about and laughed at.
Dear me oohaah you’ve sunk even deeper. You really think these Yank owners are going to cause a no relegation rule in British Football….Oh dear oh dear, are you still asleep?
Lerner and other american owners have tried to get relegation stopped at some meeting aa couple of years ago to protect their investment, American owners dont get our game but looks like we will get an american owner im afraid
American owners are far from that bad.
We’re being linked with Christophe Galtier now.. no matter what happens, definitely worth the punt! I think he could bring the good times back to Villa Park, hired under the right ownership of course.
I keep saying it. I don’t believe these rumours are any more true than the previous Red bull, Chinese, Arabs etc. it’s just wishful thinking. I suppose if people like IanRobo keep telling us it’s going to happen then at some point they will get to be right.
I think Lerner would sell if he can get the right price. It’s just hard to see it happening.
I expect Lerner’s statement will just address the reasons behind the cutting back, and maybe (though I doubt it) his continued absence. There may be changes at the club, perhaps Lambert or Faulkner or both will go. I just don’t see it being any more than that.
I think a lot of people are going to be very disappointed.
I personally think a deal of some sort is done! I always take these ITK rumours with a pinch of salt but recently even Jon Fear from Vital Villa stated in a recent post that something was afoot at Villa regards to a takeover and he would not have said such a thing unless he was 110% sure… He also says that Lambert is gone as soon as the season is over. I don’t believe it will be LE/Oracle that takes over but someone else, my theory being that Philip Anschutz could be the one due to the American tour where we play 2 team owned by AEG which is owned by PA, but again just a theory…..
there will be a riot if lerner dosnt sell know trust me
Unfortunately perhaps, being a football lover is well down the list of reasons for wealthy foreigners to be interested in buying an EPL club which has 7 years of accumulated losses.
The Abramovich reason. If you have low profile and the regime in the country you are from are out to get you, they can kill you anywhere, make it look accidental and hardly raise a ripple of interest. But if you own a EPL club the headlines and interest will be massive. So protection is one reason.
Tax reason. A successful business man may be running out of delaying moves and fact a huge corporation tax bill on the profits of his business. If he buys an EPL club he can set off against his tax bill 7 back years of losses. He also moves the money out of one country into UK, where it is unlikely to face confiscation or Exchange controls.
Profile raising. Would you have heard of EMIRATES or EHTIHAD airlines, much less been willing to book a flight before they had Arsenal’s ground or City’s ground renamed? EPL games are streamed all round the world, the advertising coverage is worth a fortune, if you have a business to expand quickly.
I hope Lerner says at least he is open to offers, I do not expect him to announce a done deal. There will be interest for the reasons above, most likely from people whose businesses you haven’t heard of.
I disagree, i think the love of football is probably one of the more common reasons.
not always, as in the case of the glaziers or gillett and hicks or deadly dougs.
but i would say abramovich, the sheiks, and Lerners ownerships were motivated by the allure of football and having a horse in the big race of the premier league.
Others are as you are probably getting at, just motivated by ego or the prestige.
but very few are motivated by profit making. If they are then they have not done an awful lot of research and I am amazed at how they have kept their wealth this long.
Glazers are probably the best example of an owner doing it for the money.
they have drawn down 10’s of millions in salaries and fees for themselves as owners/directors while transferring the cost of buying the club onto the club itself.
but outside of that, I would challenge anyone to list all the profitable clubs or owners taking profit from owning a football club.
Oracle,
they are a company that has been losing the battle to SAP for a while now, still a huge US ERP conglomerate powerhouse, but i doubt a company that sells business to business with massive worldwide penetration and that responds to american shareholders would ever want to fling a billion at a mid table english premier league club?
the Owner might with his own money, but whatever part of his fortune is based on Oracles valuation can probably be subtracted from the potential buying power should he take over Villa.
Those reasons LL
Ya i don’t really think any of those reasons are it, to be fair, Russia pretty much do whatever they want these days and are pretty clever about it too. I am sure if abramovich was an issue for them, They would seize assets and go about making life difficult for him. and to be honest who would really care outside of chelsea fans?
I highly doubt he is the picture of innocence himself when it comes to shady deals or corruption. If you are a billionaire oligarch from russia, it goes with the territory.
High profile ownership of an english football club could be just as much the PR tool the kremlin would beat him with just as much as his saving grace.
Tax,
I don’t know if its as simple as just buying a company in another country and using their previous losses to write off your existing tax liability! that may grossly oversimplifying it!
I have seen companies base their HQ in countries to shelter their profits but achieving that through a football club in england? I can’t see that unless you know of a precedent where something similar happened? that would be interesting!
Profile raising.
That can be achieved by sponsorship and for much less cost and far less risk than buying the club outright.
Also etihad and emirates have never made a profit as a company, its unlikely that they ever will. They are just like man city itself, just another plaything for an obscenely rich sheik
The types of sponsorship deals they struck with PSG and man city are not business or marketing related at heart, they are just another ploy for the sake of the football club.
If you want to see a real world sponsorship deal in football, look at the man utd deals or liverpools dunkin donuts type thing. Fixed cost, performance related and lots of sensible contractual outs no doubt should the team or the arrangement fail to deliver the exposure or results required.
I am not sure how much “love of football” exists amongst the recent incoming owners Colonius81. When the cameras are on there is a show of it at say Cardiff of Fulham, but I do not believe it, though as I never met either owner I could not be sure. However in your list of owners that you doubt had a love of football is a man I spent some hours chatting to on planes and in hotels between Birmingham and Tokyo – Doug Ellis. I can tell you that Doug really did love his club and had a superb memory for match details. He had his own ideas about running it of course, and dreamers wanted more from him. When he knew he could not deliver, I think he picked his successor carefully as a man with the necessary finances. Which to be fair to Lerner he was when he started – until oil-money added another zero to the cost of everything.
Tax. This is a football blog, I have simplified, but if you look in the financial pages today at Pfizer and Fiat-Chrysler, that is the reason given for their intended move of HQ to UK. It is a very common factor in UK take-overs.
Profile. Dubai has just overtaken Heathrow as the busiest airport for International passengers, most in transit, so raising the profile works. At 200 million with some resale value I am not sure buying Villa is not better than sponsoring it – which has zero value at the end of the deal.
I agree with you – and I never said it myself – that nobody could hope to buy Villa and make a profit out of Villa’s trading. There will still be people interested to buy it.
Its not always love of football but it is at least a fascination with it. I think there is more of that than any desire to make a profit from owning a club.
i will defer to your first hand knowledge/meetings of doug ellis of course, i have nothing but history to judge what his motivations were.
Tax wise, there must be far better prospects for tax deferral/avoidance and a better business model to invest in than villa i would imagine.
ya I still think a specific sponsorship works better than ownership for exposure,
its controlable, a club can end up being a black hole money pit, in fact i am pretty sure it will end up that way for any new owner.
Yep there will be people interested i am sure. the statements from lerner suggest as much.
Its odd why newcastle or everton didn’t get close to a sale if we do indeed get a buyer this summer.
both clubs apparently looking for ownership/sale for years now.
Fair business points. That itself raises some serious questions, for instance if Villa are owned by half a dozen entities who at any stage disagree with the direction the club should take, that would lead to crippling inertia whilst a boardroom stalemate exists. It woyld put us in an even worse position than we are in today.
I disagree anyone so high profile, professional and successful enough to be in such positions would find a way to make decisions. This is a very common scenario in not just football but in business’s large and small all around the world. Two heads better than one…..
i just hope he sells as lambert go. I know so many people now that refuse to go down next season if this regime is still there. I am one of them
I agree no different to fellow fans I’ve spoke to,one of which follows them home & away no wonder he’s now a depressive. They’ve just had enough my feelings too. Unless someone on here is going to spout off saying maybe it’s a KIDDY thing.
I think a lot of fans have had enough. Unless Lerner comes up with something positive next week lots of people won’t bother anymore just pointless
Yes very sad indeed mate. 🙁
More chance of Ellis coming back than Ellison.
Good to see some thoughtful debate, keep it up.
If Lerner’s announcement is that nothing is going to change and Lambert is still in charge, I’ll probably need to go into rehab therapy.
I’m sick of our great club being the laughing stock of everyone out there and things need to change. I was reading up on the history of AVFC and many moons ago we were considered one of the best clubs in the world, whereas nowadays pundits laugh about us and make snide comments whenever they have to lower themselves to give us a moment of their time. I’m just sick of it.
I love Aston Villa, I spend my hard earned money on games, travel, food and merchandise but for the past few years I feel that the club doesn’t love me; the average fan. This has got that change, whether that be a complete sale, incoming investment, loosening of the purse strings or a new manger, something has to happen. UTV
Would be very happy with this arrangement!
I’ve read it’s not gonna be Ellison, but Frederick Anschutz who is actually mates with Klinsmann (think he had a hand in talking him to the USMNT spot who’s taking over Villa (Co-founder of the MLS, co-founded a few of the teams, well known for his incredible influence on the sport) and could have Klinsmann manage and bring in Zola as part of his management team. Possible news coming out in the US tomorrow. Just what I’ve read from a few people, not sure if true.
He’s only worth £6b about the same as abromovich I think.
“only”… That’s only 6 times what Lerner’s worth. Imagine 20m going to 120m. Plus I’d well trust Klinsmann. Though he’ll be bringing over a ton of young German’s, get the feeling it created the Vogt link.
I said only sarcastically. Question is will a new manager get that sort if money. If he dies fair enough we could starting chsllanging again
Sounds interesting Andrew but again if I’m going to believe it well that’s another thing.
It does but it makes rumours interesting and the buildup to the press conference next week, I’m reading likely on Monday, so many things going around.
Ellison and Klinsmann
Anschutz and Klinsmann
Saint Etienne’s manager who’s done very well with them.
Sarah Cracknell?
Collymore reckons a reliable source has told him there’s no sale but Lerner IS looking to sell…..and thats what this statement is about……hmmmm….even more rumours
shit .. that is the worst possible outcome: for sale with no takers .. that means no player or manager will want to be part of the uncertainty or at least less inclined to be part of it. plus the likelihood of absolute bare bones investment maybe even less than the last few seasons!!!
Shit on a stick waved at high velocity in a crowded room if that particular rumour has any merit to it. I was trying to get at that earlier when i mentioned Everton and Newcastle, both comparable clubs to ourselves in a lot of ways, yet neither able to attract a buyer for the last few years despite public insistence by their owners that they were for sale.
lets hope not.
It’s claimed a lot of false rumours are going around by the club due to too much leaked info. Could very well be one as Collymore’s not always the most reliable source.
Only a couple more days before we know.