Deisler123

Exactly. The coverage is key. People cannot follow a club without watching their games. That is why, if Villa wants to fully utlise the China's market, a few satallite clubs in other EU countries will definitely help. Otherwise it will cost a lot to get the work permit. Yes, it will certainly be popular. But having Chinese players in the squad will help increase the fan base to another 100 times more. Seriously, having young talented Chinese players in 18-19 yos after they attended training camps in Spain after 5-6 years (there are hundreds of them now), and then give them chances of first team football if they are good enough. If not, sell them back to China super league for 100x profit.

In China, almost everyone has at least 1 European club to support. How we picked the club to support is quite random - because of a super star, because of trophies etc. But among all reasons 'the link to China' is most important, because we do not have any feeling of 'belongings' to those clubs. So if any club has a link with us (in the form of player, owner, or even sponsorship etc), it is very likely that the fan base will grow crazy. It is not only English football. Italian and German football are popular since 1980s, then Spainish since 1990s, then English football became popular since 2000s, because of TV rights being gradually introduced in China. Now the most supported clubs are: Real Madrid, Barca, Inter, AC milan, Man U, Arsenal, Chelsea, Bayern, City etc. Just to give you an example: when a Chinese player (Zhang Yuning) joined Vitesse Arnhem last year, I started to watch Dutch football and didn't miss a single match of theirs. TV rights were bought immediately in China after that and every match there were thousands of people watching Vitesse playing online. It is like, if you are a basketball fan and you like NBA, you may like 1-2 teams because of Bryant or Jordan... But if a British player joined a team there (e.g. Luol Deng), you will probably support that team (Miami). Same thing.

Surprised that you still remember him. We used to call him : 'world class below neck, shit above that'. His physical power is terrific. His laziness is unbelievable. A typical (bad) example of Chinese football player: uneducated, zero professionalism, lazy, no teamworking, low EQ, low IQ, crazy about night life. He never played in top division after Man U. Never. He now plays in amateur football. What a shame.

SinoFortone, wow.... This is basically a company backed by the entire central bank. I will be surprised if this takeover go through, but you never know.... In the last two weeks, four European clubs were bought by Chinese companies, 2 in Spain (Espanol and Granada), Villa and 1 in Italy (Inter). AC Milan is close to a deal, with a few other spanish clubs. Now Liverpool.... Hmmm, it doesn't sound like a pure coincidence that a lot of consortia started to buy European clubs.

I think it is a nature of human being to be skeptical about something they dont know (which is fine), however this has been significantly going to an extreme in some occacions because the new owner seems to be known by no one before this takeover (in this country) and he happens to come from a country that is, let me put it this way, controversial. For those who question, it may seem to be perfectly normal for them to question. Because of course they have the right to question. But from a complete different perspective, yes, it is disrespectful, as a bias is clearly there. Intentional or unintentional, i don't know. But it will be foolish to say blindly that there is no bias at all and the questioning on Xia is just a 'normal' reaction to unknown. At least I am not buying this. Note I am NOT talking about those genuine questions people asked about Xia's wealth. After the test has been done and the takeover has been completed, if people still question Xia's wealth. I think it is over-skeptical, hence disrespectful.

Good idea, and it could be just a start. Long-term speaking, if Villa can find 1-2 satellite clubs in other smaller leagues in Europe, like Dutch/Belgium (for more first team experience plus bypassing the work permit), it could be even more sustainable. And this is in fact a part of Xia's idea of 'owning a few clubs in other EU countries branded as Villa group'. A business model is there, whoever exploits it first will get huge benefit - I think Xia might attempt it with a reasonable investment, after Villa returns back to PL. It is certainly a big element of Xia's ambition.

The best now: Zhang Linpeng (RB) 27 yo (A football-look-a-like Sergio Ramos), Wu Lei (AMC/shadow) 24yo (like Argentinos Aimar), although too expensive. I personally think they can do well in Championship, and maybe a sub player for PL. Realistically: the guy my profile pic is showing - Zhang Yuning 19yo, playing for Vitesse Arnhem first team now. He is believed to be the best Chinese player in the next 5 years. And I think he is capable of playing in PL (in 1-2 years time). Or Lin Liangming 19yo, playing for Real Madrid U19 now. A good investment I think. In the last 3-4 years most clubs have resumed youth training system and they send hundreds of kids to Spain and Portugal to play youth games. Will have some good players in 2-3 years time and if Villa can take advantage of that, financial gain will be huge.

I recorded my own sound and you can find it here: https://clyp.it/joen2qxw Not very different from English if you say it in Mandarin, very different in Cantonese though. PS: if you have come across a secretive woman name, called Vera, who helped Xia complete this takeover accroding to Google, she is ' 维拉 '.

Even if Villa could get promoted with the first attempt, it is still crucial to develop the fan base in China in the first year, for a long term benefit. In China now there is absolutely NO coverage at all about English second or lower football division - most people follow, quite understandably, the most successful clubs in europe and those clubs who have Chinese players in the first squad. Development of fan base takes time (and media coverage), and Villa as a club certainly don't want to wait till the moment when it really needs the fan base in China. I would like to bet that if Villa returns back to PL and have 1 good quality Chinese player (if possible) in the first squad, the national TV channel will buy TV rights of all Villa games. And very soon (in 1-2 years) Villa will become the most popular club in China. It is not about the number of trophies the club win, it is about the feeling of 'belonging'. And all of this means potential sponsorship contract, potential investors, better confidence of Xia's investors, potential contract of youth camp (a huge un-exploited market there), potential gain for Xia's business etc., which all lead to, well let me put it bluntly, income, directly or indirectly. PS: i still remember when a few Chinese players joined Crystal Palace (in second division) in late 90s, and Sun Jihai played for Man City some years ago, all newspapers in China were like crazy and reported every single match. And you can find their kits/jerseys everywhere in the street.

I don't think that is true, or at least not the recent figure. Pre-2000, only Italian/German football was well known to Chinese fans (mainland) due to TV rights. For now a good measure of that would be using Baidu Tieba, an online forum that covers all topics of society, including football clubs. Real Madrid has 1.1M active users now, almost 100k posts every day. Arsenal has 0.43M active users, 10k-20k posts daily. Aston Villa http://tieba.baidu.com/f?ie=utf-8&kw=阿斯顿维拉 has 3379 users, single digit daily posts. In fact, it is hardly in top 100 in football club forums. I think Aston Villa is definitely the top 30 most well-known club in China, because its Chinese translation '阿斯顿维拉', which although literally does not mean anything, is very artistic and romantic as it sounds, especially in Mandarin....

Now, I am a Villa follower. Honestly I will be lying if I tell you I am now a Villa fan, as I haven't really watched a single Villa game in which I support Villa like a real fan does. Quite oppositely I watched a few Villa games last season and I supported the other clubs.... (I know I am guilty on that....) However I do plan to travel to Birmingham for a few matches next season to support Villa, and by that time, I will be confident in saying I am a Villa fan. And hopefully when I do watch the game at Villa Park sometime next season, you guys there would be very happy, instead of shouting 'Xia and RDM out! at VP'...

I would be very interested in knowing how/when the scouting team will be rebuilt. As far as I know there has been no progress on that. Certainly RDM needs a team to shortlist potential players that he wants to have for next season?

Yes, AFAIK, it will at least be live by China's most popular online TV broadcaster. If you need link, I can post it to you in private message. But unfortunately you won't understand the commentators' language, which I guess doesn't really matter.

OK, job done. Transfer talks start NOW.

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/aston-villas-chinese-takeover--11469475 Aston Villa fans have today been greeted with the news that Tony Xia's deal for ownership of the club has all but been confirmed. Having passed the Football League's fit and proper test, all that now remains is for the club to confirm the deal. Hopefully the new owner will spend more time at the club watching games than Randy Lerner did. To help him out we have translated a few examples of the local lingo to help him out. Paul McGrath my lord - 保罗·麦格拉斯我的上帝，保罗·麦格拉斯，主啊，保罗·麦格拉斯 Holte Enders in the sky - 霍尔特·恩德斯在天空 My old man said be a city fan - 我老汉说是一个城市的风扇.... Have you won the European Cup? - 你赢得了欧洲冠军杯？ Where do we keep the chocolate biscuits? - 我们在哪里保持巧克力饼干 I'm confiscating Paddy Riley's Xbox - 我没收帕迪·莱利的Xbox Stanley Victor, move away from Twitter - 斯坦利维克多，从Twitter搬走 Joleon did what with his back pocket? - 埃弗顿做了什么，他后面的口袋？ I'm looking forward to meeting our two best players - Hercules and Bella - 我期待着见到我们两个最好的球员 - 大力神和贝拉 Can we not knock it? - 能不敲它？ Very interesting one, but I must say I understand none of them. Can someone help me understand those ' local lingo ' please?

This may appear to you as how things work in China, but it really isn't. The economical growth of China in the last 20 years was massive, but the growth has to continue to maintain the social stability, otherwise it will do much more damage economically to China itself than to the rest of the world. Among all the sectors that China is trying to develop for market need, sport is the most important one. Everything linked to sport as a market is extremely underdeveloped in China. If the sport market in China can be as good as UK/US, the growth of GDP is predicted to have 2-3% boost from it, which is huge. It is not about someone's interest, it is a national strategy. PS: Honestly I don't see how keeping Villa running can bring any Chinese with any pride/bragging rights. Running Real Madrid probably can. Running Villa who may win PL someday probably can, too, but not for now.

Hi Cyrusr, find a slightly better translation here: and sorry to disappoint you - nothing related to summer transfer Two moments when you can have insights into someone's nature (i.e. intrinsic quality): one is to see if someone can keep his dignity (of both doing things or being himself) during downs and frustrations in his life; and, if someone can restrain from getting delirious during ups and successes in his life. --- Jiantong (Tony) Xia AND, only the club who have experienced ups and downs can become great legend! @ Aston Villa football club

迪马特奥, 请带领维拉再次赢得欧洲冠军杯冠军!

My pleasure. Oh your profile pic reminds me of my good old days in Sydney - I really miss the Thai food and Korean BBQ.

OK. RDM confirmed by Xia. Quick translaton here: Villa officially announce the appointment of 'Buddha' RDM. Look forward to RDM's experience in getting promotion back to PL and winning the title of UEFA champions league, which will help Villa get back to the top of the european football sooner. I got this snapshot from twitter but i can now confirm it is a post from Xia's personal Weibo account: http://www.weibo.com/1775976155/DypAKraU8?refer_flag=1001030101_&type=comment#_rnd1464904643990 A good sign - I will be very surprised if the test falls through. PS: This post brings my memory back to 5 years ago when Xu Jiayin bought Guangzhou Evergrande and he said almost the same thing - win the continental title soon (in 5 years in Xu's case and he achieved that in 3 years starting from the second division). Aren't they similar?

If I were offered the same type of job (say, managing a team with some budget in a big company) by two companies One told me: 'we are the top 10 company in Italy, maybe top 50 in EU, our budget is tight so you don't have a lot to develop your team. We want to you help us stay in top 5 in Italy. Your salary is 300k pounds a year' Another one told me: 'we were THE top club in EU, now a so-so club in England. We got some investment recently, and you will have hellalotfa budget to spend, and you need to take us back to glory'. We can offer you 2 million pounds a year for your wage. I don't know enough about you - but I will take the second option tbh.

yes, indeed. I made a typical mistake when translating Chinese into English. When asking a question (it is a sarcasm tho in that case), in Chinese we don't move the 'verb' to the beginning of the sentence. We just put a word at the end of the sentence to show it is a question, rather than a pure statement. Thanks for that correction!

Well this sum things up pretty nicely at least for now: I think it is still true nowadays even if we replace the word 'everything' with 'anything'.... PS: this pic is from a twitter post I found - how do I find the link to there? (I never use twitter myself.....)

Very likely. Or even more likely - he probably doesn't want to get involved in these non-sense. He has said in the official announcement about Xia's wealth. Even if he is in doubt about the take over now, he'd better not say anything and just wait and see.

I really like the video and how the reporter pronounced Dr. Xia's name. Dr. 'Jar'. It literally means Dr. Fake in Chinese.