Villa to be sold to Chinese. Di Matteo as Manager

[Blue Valkyrie]

It's interesting reading some of the conflicted reports coming out today. There are claims that Tony Xia doesn't quite have the qualifications and background that he claims and that the Recon Group (which is privately owned) isn't quite as successful as it appears - the FT reports that one its subsidiaries (its largest in fact) made a $78m loss last year.

The FT also notes that it hasn't published any annual accounts or audited financial statements which should raise a few alarms with Villa fans.

I haven't got time to dig around in this - sounds like a job for El Presidente - but I wonder if everything's as it seems with this

Perfect.

 

[Triggaaar]

agreed but as I said, not smooth - up and down in fact. Blue to red and back. Etc etc.

Indeed and I'm delighted we're lucky enough to have a local owner. But just in terms of trying to get promoted next season, a rich foreign owner will be tough competition.

 

[Steve in Japan]

Indeed and I'm delighted we're lucky enough to have a local owner. But just in terms of trying to get promoted next season, a rich foreign owner will be tough competition.

Yup. The Villa news hadn't broken when I said the Top 2 target was a tough one, but I think thi is just one of many pre-season developments which will have a bearing.

 

[Bozza]

Yup. The Villa news hadn't broken when I said the Top 2 target was a tough one, but I think thi is just one of many pre-season developments which will have a bearing.

Indeed. Sounds like Olympiacos owner Evangelos Marinakis is about to take a large stake in Forest.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

Indeed. Sounds like Olympiacos owner Evangelos Marinakis is about to take a large stake in Forest.

Yum. I could murder a large steak right now.

 

[Pavilionaire]

I was concerned when I heard Villa had interviewed Nigel Pearson for a second time, then along come the Chinese and Champions League winner Di Matteo is appointed.

I believe this is a real result for the Albion. The Villa job needs a tough, ruthless character with Championship experience and I fancy Pearson would have been tailor-made for the position. Di Matteo has only spent 17 months as a manager in the last 5 years - 8 as Chelsea cheerleader to Lampard and Terry and 9 in Schalke where he did OK.

For best part of 2 years he was content to sit on his arse and pick up his £130K per week pay-off from Chelsea until he landed the Schalke job. Has he got the grit and determination required to succeed in the Championship?

 

[Mellotron]

I was concerned when I heard Villa had interviewed Nigel Pearson for a second time, then along come the Chinese and Champions League winner Di Matteo is appointed.

I believe this is a real result for the Albion. The Villa job needs a tough, ruthless character with Championship experience and I fancy Pearson would have been tailor-made for the position. Di Matteo has only spent 17 months as a manager in the last 5 years - 8 as Chelsea cheerleader to Lampard and Terry and 9 in Schalke where he did OK.

For best part of 2 years he was content to sit on his arse and pick up his £130K per week pay-off from Chelsea until he landed the Schalke job. Has he got the grit and determination required to succeed in the Championship?

He took West Brom up from the Championship in 2nd. So he has done it before. I think people are talking him down a bit too much - his managerial record so far really isn't too shabby at all.

 

[Easy 10]

The stats from this season starkly bring home just how awful they are. They won only 3 league games all season. They scored fewer goals than anyone else (27) by some margin (next lowest 34). They conceded more than anyone else (76) by some margin (next highest 67). If anything they got worse as the season progressed as they finished with 9 defeats and 1 draw in their last ten. They are a truly terrible side and if they stick with the current squad they are more likely to go down than up next year.

And yet they still turned over Palace.

*snigger*

 

[Dick Head]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/36318889

Per the above link the sale is for £60M which [to me] seems incredibly cheap.

Can you lend me a fiver?

 

[Easy 10]

Villas signings last summer:

Ayew £9.5m
Amavi £8.5m
Traore £7.5m
Veretout £7.5m
Gueye £6.75m
Gestede £6.5m
Sinclair £2.5m
Lescott £1m
Crespo (no, not that one), £0.5m

So that's about £50m worth of "talent" shipped in last summer that, you would assume with the exceptions of Sinclair and Lescott, they are probably lumbered with on fairly long term deals (certainly more than a year). Good luck selling on any of those failures after the season they've just had. I wonder what kind of Premier League wages they've all been brought in on - you'd hope for Villa's sake there were relegation clauses in their contracts, but I bet that didn't even come into it.

Just financing THAT mob, along with all the deadwood dross like Agbonlahore that was already there, is going to swallow up a massive chunk of the budget. £50m to spend ? That's a drop in the ocean. Even with parachute payments, they're going to have to smash FFP to have a chance of doing anything this season.

 

[crookie]

It's interesting reading some of the conflicted reports coming out today. There are claims that Tony Xia doesn't quite have the qualifications and background that he claims and that the Recon Group (which is privately owned) isn't quite as successful as it appears - the FT reports that one its subsidiaries (its largest in fact) made a $78m loss last year.

The FT also notes that it hasn't published any annual accounts or audited financial statements which should raise a few alarms with Villa fans.

I haven't got time to dig around in this - sounds like a job for El Presidente - but I wonder if everything's as it seems with this

Hardly looks a stunningly successful businessman. No-one to even answer the phones !!

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/86e008f2-1da2-11e6-a7bc-ee846770ec15.html#axzz49DJM8cS3

 

[Pavilionaire]

Villa's top 4 or 5 "stars were on £50-55K per week, the rest of the squad were on c. £25K - £45K with most of them around the £30K mark. These are Championship standard players, some of them not even that.

It will be one hell of an achievement to turn all that around in one season and bounce straight back. I've just looked at their whole squad for last season and Rudy Gestede is the only one I'd want in the Albion 1st XI, maybe Micah Richards to replace Greer but after that the rest are pretty poor.

 

[KVLT]

Hardly looks a stunningly successful businessman. No-one to even answer the phones !!

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/86e008f2-1da2-11e6-a7bc-ee846770ec15.html#axzz49DJM8cS3

Going in to the transfer marketplace advertising an abundance of riches to spend doesn't indicate much in the way of business acumen either.

Not unless you want to be paying well over the odds for all your players!

 

[Gary1]

Villa have been up for sale for a couple of years and yet this guy only buys them when they drop a division. The question needs to be asked why. A couple of villa fans have told me that it' s so he could get the club cheaper yet if he's as loaded as they say(27 billion according to these villa fans) then a few extra quid spent buying them when in the premier would have been a better idea and built them up from there. I reckon he' s a bit of a fraud or about as clued up on football as the Venkys.

 

[Jim in the West]

This is from today's FT.com (posted around lunchtime):

The Chinese business group which has agreed to buy Aston Villa football club admitted on Friday that it controlled only one listed company, not the five previously claimed in a press release. The admission raises questions about the due diligence on Tony Xia, the businessman behind the deal. He is chairman of the Recon Group, a Beijing and Hangzhou based private holding company which controls 75 per cent of Lotus Health Group, a large producer of the food additive MSG. On the website of the Aston Villa football club, a biography of Mr Xia — posted on May 18 when the sale was announced — reads: “Recon Group is a privately owned holding company that owns the controlling interest in five publicly listed companies on the Hong Kong and Chinese stock exchanges.” The Recon Group website appears to show the group has several listed subsidiaries, however stock exchange filings show that Recon Group only has a significant stake in Lotus Health.

A Hangzhou-based spokesman for Recon reached by telephone on Friday, who identified himself only as Mr Jin, admitted the company “currently only has controlling share in Lotus Health”. Meanwhile, he said: “The acquisition deals for the remaining four companies are still being finalised and should come out soon.” He declined to name the companies.

The Recon Group said the mistaken information contained in the press release had been the result of a “miscommunication” with Aston Villa, and they would ask the football club to change the wording of the statement. The information raises questions not just about the truthfulness of the claims surrounding Mr Xia’s business dealings, but about the financial health of Mr Xia’s business group, which agreed this week to pay an undisclosed sum for Villa. Last month, Lotus — Recon’s only verifiable asset — announced it had made a net loss in 2015 of Rmb508.5m ($77.6m) on revenues of Rmb1.7bn, compared with a net profit of Rmb23.9m the previous year. Lotus produces 150,000 tonnes of MSG, exporting to more than 70 countries every year, according to Shanghai stock exchange filings, as well as other food additives.

Recon Group’s other revenues were unclear as the group does not appear to have ever published an audited financial statement. In addition Mr Jin denied an assertion by Steve Hollis, Villa’s Chairman, who was quoted on Thursday saying that Mr Xia had helped to build the Bird’s Nest Olympic stadium in Beijing. “Again, you need to ask him but he is responsible for the Bird’s Nest in Beijing and some of the other major iconic developments in China” Mr Hollis was quoted in an article in the Birmingham Mail.

“Xia was never involved in the planning or designing of the Bird’s Nest stadium. Xia’s expertise is in urban design” said Mr Jin. A spokesman for Aston Villa confirmed that Mr Hollis was accurately quoted, but said he was not sure what information Mr Hollis was citing.

 

[crookie]

Villa's top 4 or 5 "stars were on £50-55K per week, the rest of the squad were on c. £25K - £45K with most of them around the £30K mark. These are Championship standard players, some of them not even that.

It will be one hell of an achievement to turn all that around in one season and bounce straight back. I've just looked at their whole squad for last season and Rudy Gestede is the only one I'd want in the Albion 1st XI, maybe Micah Richards to replace Greer but after that the rest are pretty poor.

Agree, and the shocking thing is a number of them cost over £10million each

 

[crookie]

This is from today's FT.com (posted around lunchtime):

The Chinese business group which has agreed to buy Aston Villa football club admitted on Friday that it controlled only one listed company, not the five previously claimed in a press release. The admission raises questions about the due diligence on Tony Xia, the businessman behind the deal. He is chairman of the Recon Group, a Beijing and Hangzhou based private holding company which controls 75 per cent of Lotus Health Group, a large producer of the food additive MSG. On the website of the Aston Villa football club, a biography of Mr Xia — posted on May 18 when the sale was announced — reads: “Recon Group is a privately owned holding company that owns the controlling interest in five publicly listed companies on the Hong Kong and Chinese stock exchanges.” The Recon Group website appears to show the group has several listed subsidiaries, however stock exchange filings show that Recon Group only has a significant stake in Lotus Health.

A Hangzhou-based spokesman for Recon reached by telephone on Friday, who identified himself only as Mr Jin, admitted the company “currently only has controlling share in Lotus Health”. Meanwhile, he said: “The acquisition deals for the remaining four companies are still being finalised and should come out soon.” He declined to name the companies.

The Recon Group said the mistaken information contained in the press release had been the result of a “miscommunication” with Aston Villa, and they would ask the football club to change the wording of the statement. The information raises questions not just about the truthfulness of the claims surrounding Mr Xia’s business dealings, but about the financial health of Mr Xia’s business group, which agreed this week to pay an undisclosed sum for Villa. Last month, Lotus — Recon’s only verifiable asset — announced it had made a net loss in 2015 of Rmb508.5m ($77.6m) on revenues of Rmb1.7bn, compared with a net profit of Rmb23.9m the previous year. Lotus produces 150,000 tonnes of MSG, exporting to more than 70 countries every year, according to Shanghai stock exchange filings, as well as other food additives.

Recon Group’s other revenues were unclear as the group does not appear to have ever published an audited financial statement. In addition Mr Jin denied an assertion by Steve Hollis, Villa’s Chairman, who was quoted on Thursday saying that Mr Xia had helped to build the Bird’s Nest Olympic stadium in Beijing. “Again, you need to ask him but he is responsible for the Bird’s Nest in Beijing and some of the other major iconic developments in China” Mr Hollis was quoted in an article in the Birmingham Mail.

“Xia was never involved in the planning or designing of the Bird’s Nest stadium. Xia’s expertise is in urban design” said Mr Jin. A spokesman for Aston Villa confirmed that Mr Hollis was accurately quoted, but said he was not sure what information Mr Hollis was citing.

Got a feeling this could unravel quite quickly. Hardly transparent. Mind you Cellino was allowed to buy Leeds so the Football League hardly has exacting standards in it's Fit and Proper Person test. Interesting to see how this pans out.

 

[AK74]

Tony Xia: China's very own Michael Knighton?

 

[Pavilionaire]

How can they call themselves Lotus Health when they produce sh1t that goes to make junk food?

 

[beorhthelm]

How can they call themselves Lotus Health when they produce sh1t that goes to make junk food?

no they produce the stuff that asians use like we use salt.