Kuwabatake Sanjuro Posted January 23, 2021 Share Posted January 23, 2021 On 21/01/2021 at 10:49, useless said: Wyness is a covidiot too, how unsurprising. Villa so lucky to have survived that era. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuwabatake Sanjuro Posted January 23, 2021 Share Posted January 23, 2021 On 21/01/2021 at 17:09, The Fun Factory said: Had we beaten Fulham he would probably have tried to flog Villa as a premier league club and cashed in with a small profit. Had Wes and Naseef not bought us we would have gone into administration, and could well possibly be in League One at the moment. A complete chancer and I am surprised that an experienced businessman in Steve Hollis fell for it at the time. It smelt dodgy from day one. Xia just chucked the parachute payments at players and hoped for the best. It was total cringe when he turned up at the playoffs in 2019. This is an interesting read at least. https://astonvillaleaks.wordpress.com/ Quote We have been quiet the past few days because we have been trying to ascertain information regarding who exactly owned us. Reading the previous posts it should be obvious that we are saying Chris Samuelson was more that just a facilitator of the Tony Xia deal. We are saying he was a shadow director/owner of Aston Villa which is illegal. It has not been confirmed if Samuelson ever passed or failed the fit and proper person test. We would love to find out ! The new information we have is that we found a RECON Sports BV company based in the Netherlands, the company information is as below. Not sure of the veracity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted January 23, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted January 23, 2021 It's astonishing that it's less than 5 years ago that Xia bought us. Seems like a lifetime. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fun Factory Posted January 23, 2021 Share Posted January 23, 2021 The moment he came on at Rotherham with his cheap suit and giving it the big un to the Holte End, it didn't look right. Really loaded people would not have done that. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted January 23, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted January 23, 2021 On 18/05/2016 at 19:24, Rugeley Villa said: welcome aboard tony. be sure of one thing though,we will hate you in 3 years Well played, Mystic Ruge. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted January 23, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted January 23, 2021 (edited) 2 hours ago, The Fun Factory said: The moment he came on at Rotherham with his cheap suit and giving it the big un to the Holte End, it didn't look right. Really loaded people would not have done that. I don't think it was here but another Villa forum I read was obsessed with his shoes which looked cheap....too cheap. Then there was the turning up in an Uber thing. He didn't have a bean, I suspect he borrowed the money to buy us and now there are powerful people wanting their money back. Edited January 23, 2021 by sidcow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharkyvilla Posted January 23, 2021 Share Posted January 23, 2021 I reckon there'd be a good Netflix documentary about him and us. I'm pretty sure I was always pretty optimistic about the whole thing but then I even used to stick up for Randy at the end of his tenure. I'm easily fooled in general. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted January 23, 2021 Share Posted January 23, 2021 The people that disappointed me most were the regime selling us to Xia/whoever. Hollis made all the right noises saying they had other interested parties but Xia was the best and they were confident they were selling to the right consortium. He was involved in HS2 last I heard. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Albrighton Posted January 23, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted January 23, 2021 19 minutes ago, sharkyvilla said: I reckon there'd be a good Netflix documentary about him and us. I'm pretty sure I was always pretty optimistic about the whole thing but then I even used to stick up for Randy at the end of his tenure. I'm easily fooled in general. Completely agree. I always find the bad times more fascinating than the more successful periods (retrospectively speaking of course, it’s not so much fun at the time). There’s something inherently interesting about continual bad decisions being made, subsequent fall outs, false dawns...etc etc. If there was a book that went into the behind the scenes details from, say, MON’s final six months up to and including the fall out from the play off defeat to Fulham, I’d find it completely engrossing. And it would be an exceptionally big book. Ten years of **** ups. Maybe as an epilogue you could include the promotion season, give it an upbeat conclusion. Otherwise it’d be like some forgotten Kafka work. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Steve Posted January 23, 2021 Share Posted January 23, 2021 Looking back, there's a lot of questions Hollis needs to answer. Like, how did he get Xia's non-involvement in the Bird's Nest stadium so wrong? Quote In addition Mr Jin denied an assertion by Steve Hollis, Villa’s Chairman, who was quoted on Thursday saying that Mr Xia had helped to build the Bird’s Nest Olympic stadium in Beijing. FT and others had their concerns back in 2016. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharkyvilla Posted January 23, 2021 Share Posted January 23, 2021 1 minute ago, The_Steve said: Looking back, there's a lot of questions Hollis needs to answer. Like, how did he get Xia's non-involvement in the Bird's Nest stadium so wrong? FT and others had their concerns back in 2016. I think at the time it was blamed as being lost in translation as he was involved with designing the Olympic Park rather than the stadium. No doubt a load of horseshite too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharkyvilla Posted January 23, 2021 Share Posted January 23, 2021 11 minutes ago, Xela said: The people that disappointed me most were the regime selling us to Xia/whoever. Hollis made all the right noises saying they had other interested parties but Xia was the best and they were confident they were selling to the right consortium. He was involved in HS2 last I heard. King and Bernstein resigned not long before the sale was agreed saying there were massive differences on the way everyone thought the club should go. I wouldn't be surprised if King had big doubts about Xia, whereas Randy was just desperate to sell to anyone and Hollis facilitated it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Steve Posted January 23, 2021 Share Posted January 23, 2021 Credit to the FT. They actually dug into Xia's business background during the initial takeover. And there were more than enough red flags. Quote Mr Xia is the head of Recon Group, a holding company based in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou and in Beijing with a mix of investments. Recon declined to answer questions or make Mr Xia available for an interview, and he does not appear to have published an annual report or audited financial statements. All very strange. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted January 23, 2021 Share Posted January 23, 2021 I remember people being laughed at as conspiracy theorists wondering who he was, and where the money really came from. Any news on that Harvard doctorate? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted January 23, 2021 Share Posted January 23, 2021 1 minute ago, The_Steve said: Credit to the FT. They actually dug into Xia's business background during the initial takeover. And there were more than enough red flags. All very strange. That was a good article, published before he even became our owner, and there was loads in it to raise eyebrows. I think sometimes there's a temptation to think 'oh they must all do things completely differently in China' but big, serious Chinese businesses have up-to-date websites with relevant information on, boards of directors with clear roles, they publish financial statements and generally operate with at least some degree of transparency. Xia's businesses seemed to have pretty poor records at all that stuff. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Steve Posted January 23, 2021 Share Posted January 23, 2021 3 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said: That was a good article, published before he even became our owner, and there was loads in it to raise eyebrows. I think sometimes there's a temptation to think 'oh they must all do things completely differently in China' but big, serious Chinese businesses have up-to-date websites with relevant information on, boards of directors with clear roles, they publish financial statements and generally operate with at least some degree of transparency. Xia's businesses seemed to have pretty poor records at all that stuff. It's honestly staggering. Did the EFL, Premier League and others just buy his bravado? Articles like this should have convinced them to scrutinise their background more. More so, the Recon website hasn't been updated it seems since mid-2017. No serious company, whether in China or not, would do that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted January 23, 2021 Share Posted January 23, 2021 1 minute ago, The_Steve said: It's honestly staggering. Did the EFL, Premier League and others just buy his bravado? Articles like this should have convinced them to scrutinise their background more. More so, the Recon website hasn't been updated it seems since mid-2017. No serious company, whether in China or not, would do that. As far as I can tell, the 'fit and proper person test' just involves seeing whether the prospective owners have some money in a UK bank account and checking that they don't have any criminal convictions. I don't think they do any further investigation than that, so that was Steve Hollis's job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Steve Posted January 23, 2021 Share Posted January 23, 2021 2 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said: As far as I can tell, the 'fit and proper person test' just involves seeing whether the prospective owners have some money in a UK bank account and checking that they don't have any criminal convictions. I don't think they do any further investigation than that, so that was Steve Hollis's job. Hollis sounded delusional here. Blame lays with him and Randy. Just embarassing. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted January 23, 2021 Share Posted January 23, 2021 Even in that article, "Dr" Tony Xia. Prove it or **** off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharkyvilla Posted January 23, 2021 Share Posted January 23, 2021 I think he did at least go to Harvard, unless Jian-Tong Xia is a common name, he published a book in 2009. Anyone who can speak Chinese and spare £45 might want a look. Quote Make a return to Harvard lover(Chinese Edition) https://www.abebooks.co.uk/return-Harvard-loverChinese-Edition-XIA-JIAN/11913305119/bd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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