mikeyjavfc

11 minutes ago, maxjackle said:

I can't see any block to promotion or points deduction being resolved before a new season starts due to the legal challenge from the club that would follow. The wording is vague and opens it up to appeal. The QPR challenge took years and only ended because they settled. On that basis I think its an unlikely outcome for any club where it affects promotion or relegation.

The difference is that a fine is easily blocked or deferred by the club by refusing to pay; a points deduction is enacted by the EFL and is basically impossible to block in the short term if that’s what the EFL want to do. Any successful appeal would be too late and would only overturn the points deduction retroactivity and I have no idea how that would work: extra points awarded in a later season?? The EFL would have serious balls to do a points deduction though because if they lost an appeal then the damages would run over £100m for missed promotion.

1 hour ago, Made In Aston said:

I really don't get FFP. They want clubs to be able to prove they can pay their bills and afford transfer fees,but won't let owners cover it. If the owners put £200m in a ring fenced villa account and signed a legal document saying this money was exclusively for the club and said that they wouldn't withdraw it, why would this be a problem for the EFL?! It really doesn't make sense that owners are not allowed to be an income stream under these circumstances. 

It doesn’t make sense really - they want clubs to be self-sustaining businesses, which completely ignores the fact that football clubs have only been seen as profit-making businesses in the last 30 years or so. In years gone by football clubs were just that: CLUBS, and routinely survived off the generosity of their members and fan donations. 

We really need to bring in a forward on loan to provide competition for Kodjia

Maybe he’ll use some Unsworth style grovelling to get out of his Villa contract?

Just now, Demitri_C said:

Shouldnt we lock this for now? Bruce is staying and rightly so!

Whats the point...if we lose against Hull next week this thread will hit 200 pages.

1 hour ago, AlwaysAVFC said:

I think I read it would be determined by April whether there was a breach, so there would be time for a points deduction.

Correct. The last 3 months of accounts for the season have to be forecasted to allow rulings and punishments to be doled out before the end of the season. 

9 hours ago, Jareth said:

They're probably right, but the story carries absolutely no jeopardy - we need a £75mill injection - not debt - but cash flow - we have new owners worth billions. It's the same as saying we all have council tax to pay. 

Correct me if I’m wrong but we haven’t got a merry hope in hell in complying with FFP if we need £75m investment just to meet our current obligations, do we?

We couldn’t meet that shortfall organically if we sold the entire squad plus villa park, and external investment is not counted as revenue under ffp. 

I know we are not in danger of failing to meet these obligations due to the money the new ownership will bring to the table, but it shows how far away we are from being ‘sustainable’ or passing FFP. Expecting sanctions next year unless we argue special circumstances due to takeover.

This is left field for Bruce. I wonder how he happened across Moreira?

Mendez smelling money at villa stopped by to flog his wares? Or something to do with the new owners and their contacts? Or good ol’ fashioned YouTube scouting?

Chasing shadows. Reminds me of the playoff final.

We look like a team that have lost 4 of our starting 11....hardly surprising we look bad. Elphick, steer, bree and Wealen weren’t good enough to start last year - nothing has changed but now they have to start since we have shed our loanees and signed nobody. 

Big Ron (experienced) - Success

Brian Little (relatively inexperienced) - Success

John Gregory (relatively inexperienced) - Success

Graham Taylor mkII (experienced) - Failure

DoL (relatively experienced) - Failure

MoN (experienced) - Success

Houllier (experienced) - Failure

Mcleish (experienced) - Failure

Lambert (moderately experienced) - ???

Tom Sherwood (inexperienced) - Failure

Remi Garde (inexperienced) - Failure

Bobby Di Matteo (relatively inexperienced) - Failure

Steve Bruce (experienced ) - ???

Try and draw any conclusions from that mixed bag!

Well I hope the famous EFL 'fit and proper' test is being applied before a sale! Wouldn't want some chancer with no funds, no transparency and no business acumen taking over the club!!!

4 minutes ago, Jareth said:

So somewhere between 51% and 100%? Safe enough bet!

Well, more or less 50:50.

3 minutes ago, Hughes said:

Probably nothing in it but today's line up to me is strange. Starting/ risking all three of Jack, Chester and Kodija from start. Why do that if they soon are on their way out? If selling Grealish is REQUIRED to SAVE THE CLUB starting him in a friendly at Walsall and risk him being injured for 12 months is just silly. Starting all three apparently being on the top of the sales list is just reckless. But that's probably it. Silly, I mean. Fits the MO. 

Very good point that, it does look weird. On the flip side you could say we are putting them in the shop window to drum up interest in a sale. I imagine the crowd at this game is half made up of scouts watching our players 

1 minute ago, sidcow said:

Who the hell is "Villa report" anyway? Didn't they already publish some rubbish already.? 

Villa Report just reposts news from other sources, he always attributes his sources. I must say it is bloody useful for the lazy like me who doesn’t want to read around dreadful sites like the Brum mail for villa news. The Mandaric quotes are from the Mirror.

The best* part about the McCormack saga is that we agreed to pay his fee in installments so we still have to pay Fulham circa £6million in the next 2 years for a player who won't even train or feature for our reserves at a time when £6million would make a massive difference to our balance sheet.

*f#!king worst

Alternate theory (i.e. not based on any facts at all): Ross is a clinical alcoholic and he is signed off on long-term sick leave. We are claiming on our business insurance against loss of value to a playing asset. We can't play him or integrate him with training otherwise we lose the ability to claim on our insurance (may also be against his clinical treatment).

This is far fetched but I am trying to understand how this situation could arise with a player not even allowed to train. Even Micah Richards and the famous bomb squad got to go to training!

Love both kits! Now we know what Luke was doing whilst the work experience kid was designing the training kits!

Minimal blue on the home but I don't mind the variation for a year, as no doubt it will be back next year or year after anyway.

4 minutes ago, Straggler said:

It is a joke that he had the nerve to call this a comprehensive update as the only thing his statement comprehensively does is dodge the big questions.

Why was the tax bill missed? Why was Wyness fired? Why was not getting promotion not planned for? Why is FFP compliance being treated like a surprise situation, it has been talked about for the whole of last season. If FFP is the real issue why is additional outside investment needed? 

It is basically a very long way of saying that he messed up and does not have a clue how to fix it. 0% trust from me.

The focus on FFP is total misdirection. It is mentioned heavily in Xia’s letter but the real and well known issue at villa is the lack of operating cash to pay our tax bills and creditors. Funny how that issue didn’t get a mention.

Xia will now freely sell off our player and other assets under the guise of: “my hands are tied with FFP!”, when in reality he is trying to squeeze a return out of his failed investment. I’d go as far as to say that Xia is ecstatic about FFP as it provides a convenient smokescreen for unpopular financial decisions that are coming.

15 minutes ago, TheEgo said:

A new charge today at Companies House confirming Xia has borrowed against Carlos Sanchez deal and now a bank are owed that cash. Another bit of 'wild speculation' that has turned to fact. Expect to see more....

I said on Twitter over the weekend so I'll repeat it here, I 'think' there is the possibility we are in a period of NDA and DD which may explain the radio silence, if so this is our best bet of a clear plan for the future. I'm 100% convinced this ends in administration (no not liquidation) IF Xia doesn't sell OR get serious investment from a reputable source that then leads to a takeover as I posted earlier.

Or we can still pretend all is ok 

FANTASTIC NEWS! Who fancies a pint? 

What idiot would sink a major cash investment into Villa without even gaining control off the man who almost brought the club to its knees and is likely to do the same with your investment? Sale or nothing I think.

8 minutes ago, Hornso said:

Where does the earlier stories about buying/helping out Lyngby fit in with all this? Why would he be looking to buy another club if he has no money?

Assumption that we would be promoted. It’s clear now that every forward plan from the last year was based on this assumption.

7 hours ago, The Fun Factory said:

So what is on the agenda in tomorrow's meeting

1- Review last minutes of last meeting

2- Work out how to sack Wyness

3- Work out how Villa won't go into administration

4- Value every senior player for a possible sale

5- Check on recent season ticket sales- that won't take long

6- Any other business.

1 - Jet washing of the North Stand

2 - Balti pie shortages

3 - takes too long to get a pint a half time

4 - Gabby testimonial

5 - clappers: yes or no?

If there’s time:

6 - sort out the financial situation

9 minutes ago, sidcow said:

It's can't be that simple. Is there a limit on the amount of cash that can be injected? Inject £200m and were in profit 

Basically only the first £8million of that injection would be ‘counted’ as income under financial FairPlay (or £24million over 3 years). I think the confusion is people mistake our yearly financial reporting with our FFP calculation. The FFP calculations is BASED on our yearly accounts but excludes several items; some useful things are omitted such as expenditure on women’s football, training facilities etc.; most are not helpful to us such as omitting cash injection from owners and over inflated sponsorship deals etc. Basically, a clubs accounts can appear to be nice and healthy and still fall foul of the rules if the income is coming from the ‘wrong’ place.