joost1

I live in Hong Kong — no international plus — but regularly travel to Taiwan and Singapore, which are both on the plus list. Neither Taiwan nor Singapore would throw up a stream, though — same error message. Saw on Twitter someone in Cyprus complaining about the same thing, so maybe early season gremlins. Hope so.

No dice for me last night with AVTV. Subscribed to “international plus” package using VPN, but system flagged “unauthorised country” once the stream came up. Ugh. The other gotcha: last night at least, the video stream was only available via desktop or laptop, rather than the AVFC app. If you’re hoping to watch while out and about, looks like you’re out of luck. Come to think of it, did anyone manage to watch last night via AVTV?

Almost certainly mistranslated Recon in the original speculation as Rui Kang. I couldn't find anything about Rui Kang to suggest it had either the interest or the finances to buy the Villa. Now we know why :-)

Where are you getting this from? The Hong Kong-listed China Wah Yen Healthcare has a market cap of about HK$290m, or 25m quid... Best I can tell it's a penny stock (11 HK cents a share, or less than 1p) with no earnings and a very well paid chairman. http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/quickchart/qsymbinfo.asp?sid=138202&symb=HK%3A0648&time=8&freq=1

Good guess ;-) It may be that some people behind these listed companies are involved in a bid, but on past form (Birmingham International Holdings Ltd) you'd be very, very wary.

Yep. Many Mainland Chinese companies are former state-owned enterprises and the government retains a stake after they go public. Sometimes these companies do deals not for sound commercial reasons but out of a sense of "national service" -- senior management is looking to score points with the central government by helping China to realise its grand ambitions (like, say, becoming a football superpower). That may or may not be the case here, but don't be misled by this "owned by the Chinese government" stuff. More to the point, the 2 Hong Kong-listed companies named in the speculation are basically penny stocks: * Rui Kang Pharmaceutical Group Investment has a market capitalisation of just HK$190m (about 17m quid). And it has the 4-year share-price chart from hell. * China Wah Yan Healthcare has a market cap of HK$282m (25m quid). One of its interests, among many, is investment in "distressed assets". Mmm. Its shares, too, have performed very poorly over the past couple of years. If one or both of these companies are involved in a consortium, you'd better hope the other members have much deeper pockets.

This is a good point, General. As a Mac user, I dropped my subscription to VillaWorld on the day the site moved to Windows-only digital rights management, since I was locked out of viewing any video content. So the club lost out on my money and I lost out on Villa stuff -- not sure the opportunity cost of fighting piracy is really worth it when we're looking to reconnect with supporters and raise the club's profile. So if the rumours of free-for-all or at least revamped VillaWorld content are true, it has to be in the club's best interests to make the site available to as many people as possible -- Mac users, Linux users, mobile phone users, etc... Using Flash video or something similar would surely be a better alternative than Windows Media. General, again, thanks for being so open and forthcoming with the fans. It's greatly appreciated.

They consider themselves frontrunner. I would be very surprised if Rothchild and/or the club considers them frontrunners. However, they might have chosen another strategy. If they become Petchey's prefered bidders, it might be difficult for Lerner or whoever to get both the major shareholders to accept their offer. I'm only speculating, but perhaps Petchey and Ellis prefer different offers, and that is the reason for the delay? I think PB made a similar suggestion. I wonder. Seems to me disagreement on that front would set us back. Then again, this was never going to be a straightforward deal. If Petchey is just after the most money for his stake (and who can blame him?), Lerner certainly has the resources to compete with a slightly higher offer from AV06. Or maybe we're seeing the ground laid for some consolidation among the various consortia?

Tonight's Midlands Today in Real format. Plenty of preamble ahead of the press conference -- great to see so many there to greet him. http://www.bbc.co.uk/england/realmedia/midlandstoday/bulletin.ram

Mike seems a strange thing to come out with. If this is the case shouldn't this been seen as a positive. Agreed, has to be taken as a positive. Gives O'Neill the inside track on any and all interested parties, which may help him make a decision on joining soonish, and gives Rothschild something to take to would-be bidders -- yes, we've met him and here's what he's got to say... Given we look some way off from a winning bid (unless Lerner's the preferred bidder and just needs to formalise his offer), you've got to figure that retaining O'Neill would be a pre-condition for a deal with any consortium.

In summary: * Padfield (AV06) and Neville may link up, though no real discussions as yet. AV06 could also link up with another unnamed consortia. * Padfield waiting on Villa to get back to him, though Rothschilds have contacted him. Critical issues: whether Ellis and Petchey want to retain a stake, what their view is of managerial appointment. * No discussions yet with Ellis -- Padfield surprised by this. Believes no offers have been made as yet. Expects Ellis to want to retain some role if not investment -- would welcome Ellis' "informal" involvement. * Laudrup and Jensen are possibilities -- no formal decision has been made. O'Neill an option but Padfield has had no contact. * "Couldn't say" when offer might be forthcoming -- not in "great rush" because don't yet have all relevant information. Padmore has meeting on Tuesday, likely with Neville. * Pat Murphy says Lerner's people still talking about reinitiating negotiations, subject to undertaking of no more "intransigence from Ellis" and further questions over Ellis' desire for future role. Lerner likely wants 100% of Villa, so Petchey obviously a key player. Possibility Ellis may sit tight, but odds overwhelmingly against it. * Still consortia are seriously interested in buying Villa -- met Villa two months ago, haven't spoken for a week -- consortium isn't looking to tie up with anyone else.

Pulled no punches. He said that Doug's net spend over the years amounted to 4 million... any anoraks that can confirm that? Think he was saying 4m a season, which from memory sounds about right. Maybe 5m?

But those 3 Yanks at Villa yesterday were part of the Lerner bid weren't they?? I'd have thought so, yeah. Suppose it's possible Lerner isn't alone in his bid -- maybe there are other US interests involved in his offer?

FiveLive are saying they've spoken "to all four consortia" and will give an update from 7 tonight...