Tony Xia (no longer involved with AVFC)

[Daweii]

Just now, ccfcman said:

Does anyone have any idea how much Big Tony is worth?

I know it's a bit irrelevant once you hit a certain level, buying football clubs is kind of a hyper elite plaything to some extent but are we looking at a lad with $200m and is stretched to the max or a smooth billionaire rolling into B6? A net worth of 6Bn would suit

Personal worth? $75 million

He's government backed though so actual usable funds worth? Couple trillion dollars nothing major though. 

[Butterfingers]

1 minute ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

Feel so much better after watching that. 

He was clearly nervous, which is actually a good sign. He's a businessman but that doesn't mean he specialises in PR. What he did say though he said it without too much thought but without rushing and I got the impression he genuinely believes what he says. He's a self made man who backs himself, a lot to be admired there. 

Yes, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. But without hope, what do we have? There is never going to be a better time than today to allow some of that into our hearts.

Agree

Should never have mentioned figures for the war chest though. First golden rule when entering into a transfer window.

[KSV]

Im more nervous after watching him there. Looks like a puppet.... but whos dangling the puppet? Chinese Government? I have watched Mr Robot too many times. Lets see how we go. 

[PieFacE]

Where's this Hollis interview? 

 

The Dr certainly talks the talk.... but then again, so did Mr.Fox. Not getting too carried away just yet... 

Edited May 19, 2016 by PieFacE

[swollef]

3 minutes ago, Lombardo said:

Hmmmm... Randy Mark II?? Proud History, Bright Future. I hope he's not all hot air.

How about..Proud History, New Future....Hope this comes true

 

[Villa101]

Sorry for not joining in the excitement but this whole thing stinks and I'd be amazed if it turned out well!

[ccfcman]

1 minute ago, Daweii said:

Personal worth? $75 million

He's government backed though so actual usable funds worth? Couple trillion dollars nothing major though. 

I guess I speak for all of us when I say - 我们爱你贝!

[Daweii]

2 minutes ago, KSV said:

Im more nervous after watching him there. Looks like a puppet.... but whos dangling the puppet? Chinese Government? I have watched Mr Robot too many times. Lets see how we go. 

He's a self made man that isn't a PR guy at least not in English. 

That said his ties to the Chinese government aren't all that secret. He knows the President of China's cousin and has worked with him on several occasions in the past.

So we do have access to the Chinese government and they likely are pulling the financial strings to some extent. 

[ccfcman]

1 minute ago, Villa101 said:

Sorry for not joining in the excitement but this whole thing stinks and I'd be amazed if it turned out well!

How exactly does it stink? Is it not a deep down cynicism that yourself hold rather than anything else? All the right noises are being made. Plenty of it is to send us fans into a little bit of a tizzy with excitement. If it isn't viable it won't be ratified.

You know what does stink though? Getting relegated and Lerner continues to own the club.

[Demitri_C]

Quote

 

Tony Xia hopes revamp will turn Aston Villa into one of world’s top three clubs
• New owner tells fans: ‘Forget the past ... we are going to enter into a new age’

• Xia confirms discussions with Di Matteo and Pearson about manager’s job
 
 Tony Xia is determined to turn Aston Villa into a global footballing force. Photograph: Damir Sagolj/Reuters
Exclusive by Tom Phillips in Beijing

Thursday 19 May 2016 14.14 BST Last modified on Thursday 19 May 2016 14.28 BST

The new owner of Aston Villa has vowed to transform the recently relegated club into one of the world’s top sides, pumping up to £50m into their coffers before next season and shunning talented but lazy players.

Xia Jiantong, a 39-year-old millionaire from east China who uses the English name Tony Xia, was unveiled as Villa’s new owner on Wednesday, one month after the club dropped into the Championship following one of the most disastrous seasons in their 142-year history.

Aston Villa agree sale of club to Chinese businessman Dr Tony Xia
 Read more
Speaking on Thursday afternoon at his 19th-floor office in Beijing’s financial district, Xia said he was preparing to embark on an extensive revamp of the club in an effort to secure immediate promotion back to the Premier League. Once that was achieved he would fight to turn Aston Villa into a global footballing force.

“My ambition is to bring Villa to the top six in less than five years and I hope it can be [one of] the top three in the world – even the best well known in the world – in less than 10 years,” Xia told the Guardian in one of his first face-to-face interviews since the deal was announced.

“At least [until] now what I have planned [in my career] everything has been achieved. Nobody believe in the beginning but I made it happen no matter how many years it took.”

Asked for his message to Villa fans, Xia said: “Forget the past and think we are going to enter into a new age.”

However, Aston Villa’s new chairman admitted his immediate challenge would be fighting a way back to the top flight. “The first priority is to get promoted. I feel a lot of pressure. I think a lot of Villa fans are eager to get back up to the Premiership, so the next one year will be very tough for me. I hope we can do it.”

Xia said his main concern was finding the best manager and confirmed he had held discussions with a number of candidates, including the former Chelsea and West Bromwich Albion manager Roberto Di Matteo and the former Southampton and Leicester City manager Nigel Pearson.

“We have several very good candidates … I have talked to all of them,” Xia said, adding that the decision would be made in the next two weeks. “The most critical thing now is to get the right manager … [We] need a really good coach who knows how to play in the Championship. It’s even harder than the Premiership. We need to figure out how to reorganise the team.”

The incoming manager would be given transfer funds of between £20m and £50m, depending on how many players he believed were needed, Xia said.

“For now, I am confident. I think we will add six to seven players in maybe six or seven positions [before the start of the season] and we are going to bring some young talented people from the academy to play in the first squad … I think a lot of them can play very well in the Championship.”

The businessman, who returned to China from England this week, said he hoped the devastated Villa fans would look to the future and throw their support behind his plans.

He defended the highly unpopular Randy Lerner and said some of the abuse directed at him by fans was “unfair”.

Randy Lerner is a nice guy and does have a passion for this club. He really wanted to make the club much better
“Actually, he is a nice guy and he does have a passion for this club. He really wanted to make the club much better. He invested a lot of money.”

However, in an admission of the toxic relationship that developed between Lerner and fans, the new Villa chairman recognised he would need to build a much better dialogue with fans than his distant predecessor. “Communication will be a very important part,” he said.

Having watched Villa’s last home game, against Newcastle United on 7 May, Xia said he planned to become a well-known face at Villa Park and would move to Birmingham with his wife and 18-month-old daughter in an attempt to win over fans and help with the push for promotion.

“I am going to spend a lot of time there, especially in the first season,” he said, adding: “I think I will buy a house maybe in the next month.”

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Xia was born in Quzhou, a mid-sized city about 400km south west of Shanghai, to an agricultural technician father and a housewife mother.

“I grew up in a very normal family,” he said – but according to reports in China’s domestic media he was far from a normal child. They describe Xia, who was one of three children, as a child prodigy who left home to study at university in Beijing at the age of 14.

Five years later, aged 19, Xia packed his bags and crossed the Pacific to spend six years studying at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He also spent five months as an exchange student at Oxford University in 2002, during which time he said he had become a fan of Aston Villa after watching a game at Villa Park. “I’ve been a fan of the English football league for many years,” he said.

Asked about his first match at Villa Park, the entrepreneur said: “You know the feeling there. It’s not like excitement, it is like a shock when you are in that environment.”

Xia said he made his fortune working on infrastructure projects across a rapidly urbanising China and had taken over Recon Group, the Beijing and Hangzhou-based holding company behind the purchase of Aston Villa, in 2004.

Perhaps appropriately for the new owner of a crisis-hit football club, he said the company’s name was an abbreviation of the word “reconstruction”.

According to the Financial Times Recon Group has controlling stakes in companies that include a soap maker and a Shanghai-based company that produced 150,000 tonnes of the food additive monosodium glutamate (MSG) last year. That firm reportedly made a net loss of $77.7m last year.

In an interview with Sky News, the former Villa midfielder Ian Taylor described Xia’s takeover as “great news” but admitted he was “a bit reserved about the qualifications of the new owner”.
 Tony Xia says Aston Villa ‘will add six to seven players in maybe six or seven positions’ before the start of next season. Photograph: Damir Sagolj/Reuters
Speaking on Thursday, Xia insisted he was the perfect man for the job. He described himself as a hard-working, self-made millionaire who would have little patience with overpaid players who were not pulling their weight.

“For a lot of Chinese now, they think the only way you become rich or become successful is because you have grown up in a rich family or you have a whatever daddy – a rich daddy, a powerful daddy or whatever,” he said. “At least from my experience, if you keep working hard you still have a chance … I think attitude is more important than talent. So that is one of the basic principles for me to give advice to the [new] coach to choose players to revamp the team.”

Xia promised to pump significant funds into the club but said he would not attempt to copy what he called the “money-burned” model of teams such as Manchester City. “I don’t think that’s a healthy model and it can’t last long,” he said.

Xia said he would return to Birmingham in the next fortnight in order to start the rebuilding process and engage with the fans.

“They need to know that I am one of them,” he said. “I will do whatever I can to promote the club. I hope we can bring everything back on to the right track as soon as possible.”

The current situation at Aston Villa “could not be worse,” Xia admitted. “So I hope all the Villa fans can really stand up together. I hope after one year we will be happy.”

 

Super Xia!!!!!!!!!

I like the part where he is talking about moving over here just like a owner should take note Lerner.

He has big bloody plans for us thats for sere, I like his ambition

[KSV]

I heard the Hollis interview on Facebook. He said that he has plans for Villa but also for the city of Aston? Hes an architect as well isnt he?

[Johnnyp]

Do not underestimate the potential scale of this deal. I've heard it said around this morning that villa are only a pawn in a bigger game. If us getting promoted and competing at the top end of the premier league is part of it though I've no problem. The potential for growth in football and sport in general in China is massive, Xia knows this. The big money for him isn't getting 42 thousand into VP every week. It's China, the money is in China. But i don't see how we lose. If our brand grows over there and we become more popular, he will look to grow support even further thus investing more into the squad. Cautiously exciting/optimistic times.

[Swerbs]

City of Aston? Are they planning on breaking away from Birmingham? 

[ccfcman]

1 minute ago, Swerbs said:

City of Aston? Are they planning on breaking away from Birmingham? 

The Peoples Republic of Aston

[KSV]

Just now, ccfcman said:

The Peoples Republic of Aston

Why not ;). 

I actually feel better after the interview with Hollis. Sounds like he may stay on the board too. 

[PieFacE]

8 minutes ago, Villa101 said:

Sorry for not joining in the excitement but this whole thing stinks and I'd be amazed if it turned out well!

The guy is obviously quite intelligent and has a vision, he's certainly not a crooked chancer like a certain Carson Yeung.. Let's give him a chance before writing him off. 

[Demitri_C]

5 minutes ago, Johnnyp said:

Do not underestimate the potential scale of this deal. I've heard it said around this morning that villa are only a pawn in a bigger game. If us getting promoted and competing at the top end of the premier league is part of it though I've no problem. The potential for growth in football and sport in general in China is massive, Xia knows this. The big money for him isn't getting 42 thousand into VP every week. It's China, the money is in China. But i don't see how we lose. If our brand grows over there and we become more popular, he will look to grow support even further thus investing more into the squad. Cautiously exciting/optimistic times.

Would not be surprised if he was contemplating opening a school/academy for Chinese players who want to break into European football near us. If he shows that to the Chinese government I am sure they will invest heavily. If thats the case for one of the plans Xia is a potential genius.

Edited May 19, 2016 by Demitri_C

[DCJonah]

Did not like Hollis saying that he and Randy have their favourite for the manager job and will be discussing it with Tony. I hope he tells them to get ****. Last thing he should do is listen to managerial advice from lerner. 

[Jareth]

The only thing I don't like is that he says he won't follow the Man Citeh mode of burning money. If we are to be top 3 in the world then burn money we must! Other than that 9 out of 10 from me. I still think I am dreaming all this in some sort of coma from a car accident I haven't realised happened yet.

[romavillan]

2 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

Did not like Hollis saying that he and Randy have their favourite for the manager job and will be discussing it with Tony. I hope he tells them to get ****. Last thing he should do is listen to managerial advice from lerner. 

unless it's moyes.