Tony Xia (no longer involved with AVFC)

[TheEgo]

1 hour ago, Deisler123 said:

No. The loss I estimated was his domestic business, not including Villa.

I know, I'm telling you our accounts show a 83m loss at Villa. So he won't be able to make up the losses anytime soon. IF he stays and we don 't get 'fresh' money (away from his web of loss making entities) we will definitely enter administration. He's made a complete hash of it all here and I want him out and as fast as possible. His ownership has been nothing short of a disgrace. His communication a joke and his general demeanor very very amateurish. #XiaOut

[TheEgo]

1 hour ago, Deisler123 said:

Whether or not that is a stereotype is not important. My point is he will not care about his face (i.e. Villa business) if his main business goes bust.

 

Yeah. It is perhaps better IF villa can get a new owner with deep pocket and good management team. But for the crisis that the club is in, not quite sure how it is attractive to investors.

From a business point of view, for Xia, selling now is perhaps not a good option.

It is simply impossible to ignore the media nowadays. So his words ‘didn’t look at news’ mean ‘don’t really bother’. And the fact that it took so long for him to respond was potentially due to : either he was busy in dealing with his main business, or he just made a major decision, which, based on the tweet itself, could be ‘i will not sell up for now and let’s see how things go in the near future.

Cheers for your candid answers, appreciated as always  I think his tweet was a defiant message to try and maintain the selling price. If he said I've messed it all up, he would look weak. You may of read, but i believe a deal is afoot and a sale won't be far off. Did you see he converted a lot of debt into shares/equity/capital?

[TheEgo]

1 hour ago, Jareth said:

And what they all have in common is that they are not Chinese articles. 

Well a couple were in fairness. It's been a common theme from all Chinese news sources that he doesn't wish to lose face.  That said our own Chinese poster has said he wouldn't be trying to save face, so I'm happy to be lead by him. If that isn't a reason, it's one less and he can hurry the f up and go.

[Jareth]

12 minutes ago, TheEgo said:

Well a couple were in fairness. It's been a common theme from all Chinese news sources that he doesn't wish to lose face.  That said our own Chinese poster has said he wouldn't be trying to save face, so I'm happy to be lead by him. If that isn't a reason, it's one less and he can hurry the f up and go.

This is a bit pithy - they were not Chinese press articles Google translated into English saying Us Chinese must save face over and above anything else - or did I miss that? In other words, Tony's a shite for being a money oriented prick, not for being stereotypically Chinese. In other words - he's probably got a lot in common with the next owner, regardless of nationality. 

[terrytini]

1 hour ago, Jareth said:

This is a bit pithy - they were not Chinese press articles Google translated into English saying Us Chinese must save face over and above anything else - or did I miss that? In other words, Tony's a shite for being a money oriented prick, not for being stereotypically Chinese. In other words - he's probably got a lot in common with the next owner, regardless of nationality. 

Pithy.

As In terse etc.

But pith is also part of a fruit, and a pith helmet is a hat made from such, as for example worn by British soldiers in India.

I mention this because whenever I see the word pith I’m reminded of a postcard ( a piece of card with, for example,  a scenic view  or - rather unfashionably in hindsight - bawdy cartoon that people would post Home from their holidays, for anyone under 40 out there) my late Mom for some reason found hilarious .....an Officer shouting at a Private “ Pith Off Private”.... and the soldier replying 

“ But Thir, Ive only Juth got here”

[HanoiVillan]

4 hours ago, Deisler123 said:

Whether or not he will move on from the crisis (in terms of Villa business) is another thing though. If I were him, I will not sell at the moment. I will try to break even on finances and then try to see what happens next season. You can always argue that he should leave and sell up, but I don’t think selling at this point is a wise business decision. 

Mate, I've been following this club for my whole lifetime. I don't know much, but I do know it's not just around the corner from 'breaking even'. The time to sell is now. If he sells all the quality in the playing squad, the club will be relegated with enormous debts, and probably enter administration, but even so would be worth basically nothing from the point of view of a sale. If he doesn't sell most of the playing squad, the club will enter administration shortly as there is real doubt about our ability to pay bills on a weekly basis. 

He needs to sell ASAP; on this at least, his interests and ours are aligned. 

Edited June 28, 2018 by HanoiVillan

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

So basically everything is still shit then...

[hippo]

6 hours ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

So basically everything is still shit then...

apart from the fact we are the greatest team in world soccer... . .yes!

[Rob182]

12 hours ago, DCJonah said:

Rubbish. It wasn't a good experiment, it was a gamble everything move. If i put my life savings on red and it came up black, no one would say it was a good experiment. 

And the fact we failed has caused issues with FFP. Our finacial issues in regards to just paying bills each month, are thanks to the terrible way we have been run

I don't know that your 47% 'red or black' analogy is fair. I might be wrong, but I think it's much more than half of the clubs that put money in like we have that get promoted.

If we're as close to administration (or the technical term 'we're f***ed*) as many people are saying, then of course what Tony has done is negligent and reckless, but many other teams have made these types of gambles to get promoted previously. Clubs have been into administration and recovered, clubs have sold assets and recovered, and a number of clubs have made these gambles and have gotten promoted, with the issues never to come to light. Brighton and Newcastle being the most recent examples, whose ratio of wage bill/turnover was similar to ours, IIRC. I'm sure I read that Leicester and Bournemouth did the same. Some of these teams have been fined because of their overspending. Had they failed at promotion as Xia, Bruce and Villa have done, then they'd be in similar positions to us, if not worse, who knows. On the flip side, if we'd achieved promotion then all of this would have been avoided, and we would have hit the jackpot. (I don't buy this talk that if we'd gotten promoted, that Xia would have still bankrupted us somehow by overspending the Premier League money).

I don't think @Jareth's 'It has been a good experiment' comment is the right wording, but it's a similar 'experiment' (gamble) to what many clubs have done before, so you can see why Xia and any other decision-makers at the club took that approach: Bring in some of the best players available, bring in proven managers and hope that they all come good.

The biggest error on their parts is taking the spending that bit too far that it's not left us with enough to tick over.

[hippo]

15 minutes ago, Rob182 said:

I don't know that your 47% 'red or black' analogy is fair. I might be wrong, but I think it's much more than half of the clubs that put money in like we have that get promoted.

If we're as close to administration (or the technical term 'we're f***ed*) as many people are saying, then of course what Tony has done is negligent and reckless, but many other teams have made these types of gambles to get promoted previously. Clubs have been into administration and recovered, clubs have sold assets and recovered, and a number of clubs have made these gambles and have gotten promoted, with the issues never to come to light. Brighton and Newcastle being the most recent examples, whose ratio of wage bill/turnover was similar to ours, IIRC. I'm sure I read that Leicester and Bournemouth did the same. Some of these teams have been fined because of their overspending. Had they failed at promotion as Xia, Bruce and Villa have done, then they'd be in similar positions to us, if not worse, who knows. On the flip side, if we'd achieved promotion then all of this would have been avoided, and we would have hit the jackpot. (I don't buy this talk that if we'd gotten promoted, that Xia would have still bankrupted us somehow by overspending the Premier League money).

I don't think @Jareth's 'It has been a good experiment' comment is the right wording, but it's a similar 'experiment' (gamble) to what many clubs have done before, so you can see why Xia and any other decision-makers at the club took that approach: Bring in some of the best players available, bring in proven managers and hope that they all come good.

The biggest error on their parts is taking the spending that bit too far that it's not left us with enough to tick over.

I don't know for sure that any other clubs have been so reckless. The only example I can think of is Leeds when they were chasing champions league.

Newcastle - largely kept their existing squad together - I wasn't aware they went on the spending spree in terms of transfer fee's that we did

Brighton - Don't know about wages - But I don't recall a big splash in the transfer market

Lets not forget over a period of two seasons a as a championship club, we spent big on wages and fees - close to £60 80m on fees alone,  not many prem clubs can do that , this was from a relegated loss making position - IMO thats as reckless as it can get.

 

I can't agree that all of this would have been avoided if we won promotion - For starters Xia would have had to pay Randy another £20m or so (the terms of the purchase)  - Then there is the fact we wouldn't see any TV money until the end of the 2018/9 season 

 

 

 

Edited June 29, 2018 by hippo

[Rob182]

14 minutes ago, hippo said:

I don't know for sure that any other clubs have been so reckless. The only example I can think of is Leeds when they were chasing champions league.

Newcastle - largely kept their existing squad together - I wasn't aware they went on the spending spree in terms of transfer fee's that we did

Brighton - Don't know about wages - But I don't recall a big splash in the transfer market

I'm just going off what I've heard/ read in recent articles.

Going off 'transfermarkt's numbers (which might not be 100% correct, and which also lists the transfers in Euros, so conversion is needed), here is Newcastle's transfers for the 16/17 season:

Matt Richie (12m), Dwight Gayle (12m), Matz Sels (6.6m), Grant Hanley (6.6m), Ciaran Clark (6.6m), DeAndre Yedlin (5.9m), Mohamed Diame (5.4m), Daryl Murphy (3.5m), Isaac Hayden (2.9m) Achraf Lazaar (2.85m), Christian Atsu (loan), Jesus Gamez and Stuart Findlay (free and free). For balance, they also sold some players for large fees Moussa Sissokho, Wijnaldum & Andros Townsend, but equally, players like Richie, Gayle and Mohamed Diame would have commanded Premier League wages, much like we have forked out for Jedinak etc.

Brighton's transfers seem much more reserved when I look back over them, but what I read/heard was more around wages, so maybe they still had a decent sized wage bill, who knows for certain. That's just what I read. It was around wages compared to turnover, so their turnover presumably being lower than ours at that point will have an impact too.

[omariqy]

5 minutes ago, Rob182 said:

I'm just going off what I've heard/ read in recent articles.

Going off 'transfermarkt's numbers (which might not be 100% correct, and which also lists the transfers in Euros, so conversion is needed), here is Newcastle's transfers for the 16/17 season:

Matt Richie (12m), Dwight Gayle (12m), Matz Sels (6.6m), Grant Hanley (6.6m), Ciaran Clark (6.6m), DeAndre Yedlin (5.9m), Mohamed Diame (5.4m), Daryl Murphy (3.5m), Isaac Hayden (2.9m) Achraf Lazaar (2.85m), Christian Atsu (loan), Jesus Gamez and Stuart Findlay (free and free). For balance, they also sold some players for large fees Moussa Sissokho, Wijnaldum & Andros Townsend, but equally, players like Richie, Gayle and Mohamed Diame would have commanded Premier League wages, much like we have forked out for Jedinak etc.

Brighton's transfers seem much more reserved when I look back over them, but what I read/heard was more around wages, so maybe they still had a decent sized wage bill, who knows for certain. That's just what I read. It was around wages compared to turnover, so their turnover presumably being lower than ours at that point will have an impact too.

Mistakes we made were around who we actually recruited, the lack of strategy of which players we actually need for what system and the manager selection. If you get those wrong then it doesn't matter what you spend. It is destined to fail. 

[Rob182]

1 hour ago, omariqy said:

Mistakes we made were around who we actually recruited, the lack of strategy of which players we actually need for what system and the manager selection. If you get those wrong then it doesn't matter what you spend. It is destined to fail. 

I don't disagree there. Mistakes have been made. Hiring RDM being one of the biggest, as that started the ball rolling for the whole thing. But when looking at the spending alone, which is what has got us into this current mess, other clubs have taken the same, or similar, risk and have been promoted. Their fans will barely have said a bad word about that strategy, because they achieved their aim.

Aside from taking a financial gamble in a way that a football club never should, one of Xia's biggest failings has been his naivety. He was probably sold a dream with the appointment of 'Champions League Winner' Di Matteo, and then he was probably given assurances that signing these types of highly paid 'proven' players will give us the best chance of promotion. I'm not removing the blame from him, because when it comes down to it, he will be the one setting the budgets and knowing when he's going over what can realistically be spent, but when it comes to the players/system/manager, he will have taken advice from others around him, and his naivety to trust them has cost him and us.

[omariqy]

7 minutes ago, Rob182 said:

I don't disagree there. Mistakes have been made. Hiring RDM being one of the biggest, as that started the ball rolling for the whole thing. But when looking at the spending alone, which is what has got us into this current mess, other clubs have taken the same, or similar, risk and have been promoted. Their fans will barely have said a bad word about that strategy, because they achieved their aim.

Aside from taking a financial gamble in a way that a football club never should, one of Xia's biggest failings has been his naivety. He was probably sold a dream with the appointment of 'Champions League Winner' Di Matteo, and then he was probably given assurances that signing these types of highly paid 'proven' players will give us the best chance of promotion. I'm not removing the blame from him, because when it comes down to it, he will be the one setting the budgets and knowing when he's going over what can realistically be spent, but when it comes to the players/system/manager, he will have taken advice from others around him, and his naivety to trust them has cost him and us.

I'm not disagreeing on the spending, I am just saying that we didn't do it in the right way. We have purchased championship players for high fees/wages, with no real chance of a sell on value. The second season we have purchased experienced players who are nearing the end of their careers on high wages. There was no coherent strategy and no plan B. That is the failure. Spending our way out of the league was not necessarily a bad plan, it was the execution of it that was. I've talked about it before but we have bought players who all fit different teams and different ways of playing. Teams like Fulham, Wolves, Cardiff and even Newcastle go in players that fitted what they were trying to do. Just look at us signing Kodjia and McCormack in the same window or Hogan in the Jan window. No strategy. 

[VillaChris]

Newcastle certainly would've been in trouble if they hadn't gone up, Wolves aswell.

Difference is these clubs remember to actually win their important games and go up, we didn't.

[Vive_La_Villa]

Dangerous page number. 

[Sam3773]

This is rubbish. I want rumour, dodgy ITK's, pictures of Xia with family and rich businessmen, Larry Ellison, I want it all. 

I heard that the American party took a look around on Monday and another group on Tuesday.. Where's @thetrees with reports on all the rich people who have flown into Birmingham International?!

Call this a bloody takeover?! 

[terrytini]

Ok I’ll risk it

 

[terrytini]

Oops

 

Ha ! I laugh in the face of the dark one !

Edited June 29, 2018 by terrytini

[Keener window-cleaner]

On 18/06/2018 at 16:15, TheEgo said:

Samuelson was mean't to be Vice Chairman and Jamie Banfill a director, but they both failed the owners and directors test, so were removed as directors (initially from Villa and stayed in one of the other companies, but eventually left those too) 

Sorry for a late follow up to this, but are you sure CS failed the owners and directors test (the fit and proper person test?), I mean if it is a rumour or a fact that can be verified? It's quite interesting if he actually was supposed to be a director. Two years ago there was quite much discussion here on the forum regarding the role of CS, if he was merely a middle man who helped and facilitated Xia to buy the club, or if he was meant to have a bigger role. Before the take over there were pictures from the dressing room where Villa shirts with names on were displayed and you could see the names of Wyness and Samuelsson etc. After the takeover CS was present at an event in India where he spoke about the clubs ambition to have partner clubs in India etc, and as you said he was also put up and then removed as a director (which has been explained by being a normal practise when facilitating a aquisition). If I remember correctly Xia then said in a tweet that CS had nothing to do with the club more than helping out with the aquisition.

I had bought the version that CS only helpt Xia to buy the club. But if it is so that he actually was meant to be a director and failed the owner and directors test it comes in a new light and it looks as if he was meant to have a bigger role. It makes the whole aquisition become more dodgy. As question marks now start to re-emerge regarding Xia and how he funded the aquisition, it would be quite interesting to know what role CS actually was meant to have (especially in light of the rumours about CS other affairs). It also sippers down to the role of Hollis and what he knew.

(I don't intend to reopen the whole CS discussion here  just interested if he actually failed the owners and directors test to get some more info on what Xias was thinking when he bought us).  

  

Edited June 29, 2018 by Keener window-cleaner