I’m currently on holiday in Gran Canaria and cutting a long story short, can’t get any WiFi via the hotel.
Fortunately, thanks to 3 mobile’s excellent “Feel at home” benefit, I can get online via my phone.
Unfortunately, I’m rubbish at typing on a phone and find it really tedious, so forgive me for quite a bit of cutting and pasting, courtesy of the Birmingham Mail.
First, Xia apparently outright rejected a £30mill bid for 30% of the club, which on the face of it, is a decent proposal.
“Of course there were some proposals of their own.
One of those was to sell star performer Jack Grealish for no less than £40m – and use all of the incoming funds as operating capital”.
I’d guess that was because it just isn’t enough money.
Next, if the Mail are to be believed, he has now turned down a second offer for 51% of the club, although there’s no mention of how much money is involved.
I’d guess that either the valuation is too low or that the bid required Xia to pump some of his own money into the club, which he just can’t do.
The good news is that it seems both parties were willing to make heavy investments.
And there are still other interested parties.
I personally now wonder what Xia wants and I suspect it’s a total sale.
Hence I reckon we’re going to be looking at new owners and the “investor” part is a bit of a smokescreen.
Which might be a good thing, but we all know there are plenty of shysters out there.
Talking of which, Xia has been censured by the Shanghai stock exchange for claiming to have sold a company to someone.
Nowt wrong with that, but it seems that the “someone” was another of Xia’s own companies and that part wasn’t stated.
That’s tantamount to downright fraud and shows Xia in a really bad light.
It’s probably another example of how desperate Xia has become and puts the lid on the “not able to get money out of China” talk.
The story comes from a new site, Villaleaks.com.
I’d love to know who’s behind that.
Who has the agenda to want Xia in trouble and knows the right sort of places to look, I wonder?
I now sadly believe that regardless of the risk of selling to yet another owner we don’t know, Xia has to go.
The trouble is, we might get yet another totally opaque Chinese owner.
On a brighter note, it’s been a great World Cup up to now, hasn’t it?
They are leaving the sinking ship and who can blame them.
The Doctors evil plan is to get as much cash back for his investor chums as possible and remove anyone who is in his way – He’s a f***ing Dictator of a house off cards….. I’m Gutted !!
Now, unlike Grealish, I can see Xia selling Hogan or Kodjia without fear of destroying a takeover bid. Both were more or less fringe players last season and if reports are to be believed players we still owe other clubs for. Personally I rate them both, but if I’m honest if the club can at least get their money back I wouldn’t be really upset to see them move on. Who knows maybe Bruce will give Davis a chance.
According to NewsNow there’s an open letter from Xia on the Official site – the problem is that it appears to have crashed!
Now the synic in me is very suspicious but perhaps 50,000 Villa fans are all trying to access the site simultaneously?
Oh well, suppose I’ll just have to be patient!
It seems Grealish is now in Portugal for 8 days with the team, what’s going on?
First he’s going now he’s in training with 22 others, its a most confusing situations to me.whats this chink up to playing silly sods and annoying fans.
Apologies if this post appears twice but first time it seemed to disappear.
According to news night there is an open letter from Xia on the official site except the site seems to have crashed. Should I be cynical?
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/dr-tony-xia-issues-astonishing-14877584.amp?__twitter_impression=true
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/dr-tony-xia-issues-astonishing-14877584
Here it is from Brum Mail – haven’t read it yet
Having read it, I have no idea what to make of it.
Either there has been a completely misleading media storm or the owner is delusional.
Answers on a postcard pleased.
One confused fan
In short, Xia is saying there is no problems at the club, refuses to sell up, and Bruce is now charged with the thankless task of selling players.
Thanks Marvin, glad you understand it!
The whole letter sounds rambling and jumps around. What I find odd is how the club no longer has immediate cash flow issues – ie will we find out tomorrow Grealish was sold? And if Xia is looking for investment and only received one 30m offer, why in the following bullet points did it state he turn away ‘multiple’ other interest? I’m just as confused, but I feel terrible for the position Bruce now finds himself in.
One final comment – Xia says the club are ‘bank loan free’ but this is completely contratidictory to filings at Companies House. In my view this alone is sufficient to wholly discredit the letter. I would love someone to prove me wrong.
Where do you get that from H60? Aston Villa accounts to 2017 showed a £1M bank loan (about £10M less than the year before). Xia says he has capitalised his own loans. Not sure why you doubt this but interested to hear.
It does appear that he can control situation, but FFP limits his scope for investment. He could be hiding behind that but I would expect a more desperate move to sell if that’s not the case.
DS, the Brum Mail ran an article which evidenced loans from an Australian Bank – Macquereas (sic) for forward borrowing secured against the final Amavi payment and at least part of the final parachute payment – two or three loans all recorded at Companies House.
Xia also says he’s swopped (his) debt for equity (you may remember Lerner doing the same) as required by FFP. He may well have done but interestingly and this may be what the share changes at Companies House were about but I believe that’s more to do with improving Xia’s tax position and simplifying the sale of an interest in the club rather than FFP.
My comment about wholly discrediting the letter wasn’t meant to read as there weren’t elements of truth but I wasn’t convinced by it as a whole. Nor was the Brum Mail who described it as incredible – which literally means unbelievable, hard to believe or beyond belief.
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/xia-letter-aston-villa-grealish-14877749
DS if you scan down this article you’ll see the comments on the forward loans which are described by financial experts as ‘unusual’. To my mind this is just a form of secured debt to raise cash so how can we be ‘bank loan free’?
Other than confirming Bruce stays as manager what else does it say that we didn’t already know – and it’s what it doesn’t say that’s more illuminating – no cash flow problems after all?
It’s just a lower rate Wonga loan then 😉
LOL
That’s how it comes over to me, its now a wait and see to proove that point,
Do I feel better, no.
well we finally get the letter or the word from the horses mouth. no need for fake news we are in trouble. but hey we all knew this in our hearts of hearts. i think we have to give the guy a chance, what i expect him to do, is what should have happened the day after we got relegated. sort our house out.
i expect all players with wages higher than 20k 25k be the first to go depending on offers made obviously. that means the whole squad needs selling basically. its gonna be tough few years ahead, the kids will finally get their chances. they do have talent, they where not far behind last year, but one area they need to improve is their physicality, they will need to handle the bumps of championship football. its not impossible for them but will take time.
for those that don’t think its a step up. should look at grealish and the amount of times he was man handled last season, how many times he took a clattering. every game he was targeted or singled out. its this part of the game our youth players will struggle adapting too. but if they are eased in this season, i have no doubts they will handled it.
one part of the letter i found interesting, was the part were if we changed ownership. that this would reduce the ffp rules affect on us. does anybody know more about this.
we owe fake news say 40mill which needs to be addressed this year, or we will be sanctioned accordingly. if dr sold shares to another chinese businessman, they took over ownership and drx was just a shareholder. would this reduce the amount or increase the time to address the amounts owed
Nath someone else raised this point sometime ago – I have no idea whether it’s true or not but on balance I doubt it – it might solve the cash flow issues but wouldn’t change the accumulated losses.
Notwithstanding, I couldn’t see in the letter where he said change of ownership would help FFP but rather that player sales (trades) were the solution. But we all know this is going to happen as it responds both to FFP and cash flow problems.
I thought the one honest admission is the inference that we will not be back in the Premiership in the short term.
i read somewhere about the same happened at ac milan when they were in difficulties with ffp. if this has some truths maybe the drx should hand over the club,then his stakes and his investors will benefit more than if they remained in control.
i agree the letter doesn’t tell us anything more than we already knew, we have to start a fresh this season. build again, but this time from the ground up. southampton done that when they fell to div 1 not long back. they came back stronger with a young fresher squad that played decent football.
my one major concern is can bruce build a squad like that, he hasn’t done this before at any previous clubs. he has the youth team already there,it just needs the right guidance
8. Selling any size of shareholding in the club will not aid in respect to FFP.”
Technically, this is false. New ownership is accounted for in FFP calculations, with new owners allowed a chance to present plans to the EFL that showcase their roadmap with an end goal of meeting FFP. A new owner at Aston Villa, or a new majority shareholder will be given the chance to sidestep FFP as long as they are committed to righting the previous regime’s wrongs. AC Milan were given a chance to speak to UEFA about their FFP situation, but they ballsed it up – refused to meet the limits and instead chucked massive wage packets around.
this was what i was reading this morning still under the influences of the night before lol but its still says we could sidetrack the punishment but ac milan ballsed it up
That’s very interesting Nath. Also reinforces my scepticism over the content of Xia’s letter. The more I read it, the more self serving it appears to be.
another thing that came out was grealish isn’t being forced out, but wants to leave. this was another thing i predicted would happen. southgate won’t pick championship players and grealish has been told this. it doesn’t matter that we want him to stay. he is a player who will think himself first. he gave us one last year and now he wants to play football at the highest level, before his career ends.
we fans have to accept this and hopefully the owner can get the correct price for him, but hes gonna need to grow some balls to haggle with levy. he cant show any weakness. if drx gets a great deal, we could clear the ffp with one sale.
then we won’t have to sell other players like green davis etc. but we still would need to reduce the wages but we could replace some with cheaper waged players
I am disappointed that papers seem to be linking Huth with us. I hope Bruce stops going for very old players. Use the loan system up and coming or good players who can’t get games.
Based on Xia’s comments last night, now is the time for contract extensions for our promising U23 players. We have entered a period where any decent up and coming player will be sold to balance the books, whilst we grapple with FFP. Further, we have fallen down the food chain and are more prone to competitors taking our players. We must ensure that any quality coming through the system do not leave on the cheap. Generated funds and effective use of the loans system is the only realistic way we will be promoted to the premier. I really don’t see us being in a true position to challenge for promotion for at least 3 years.
UTV
huth was a good defender, but for me he has no pace and thats a liability for the whole team. its limits our tactics. we need to resign that man utd guy on loan and blood our own with maybe elphick staying as captain