Re: AVFC Takeover Thread, Rumours, Gossip and Hearsay...all goes here

[Smorg]

Tony Xia
Doctor Tony Xia
We all know you understand
From relegation fights
To premier league nights
We all know you understand

Come on you lot get some positivity, ding dong the wicked wizard has gone.
Give the guy a chance.

[BillytheKid]

E&S saying Moyes or Pearson and Pearson is Hollis's choice so maybe just maybe this means Xia already saying he has a manager lined up its Moyes?

[HarryAVFC]

I'm pretty sure it will be NP

Hollis said in his interview there has been a guy waiting all along to take the job but he understood the situation about the take over

I think Hollis would told Xia about NP and hes agreed to take him

Moyes would be perfect but I can't see it being him

[Dansvilla75]

just read the below from a poster on facebook  which I believe was stolen from another forum. Ordinarily I wouldnt endorse shit from another forum but on this occasion I read this and felt an immediate wave of calm, I hope it serves others as well as it served me. Hell i was nearly romantically nourished by it :)


Looks a good calming voice amongst some of the hysteria about the takeover taken from the Villa New Owner Thread:

McParlandTheGreat posted: 21/5/2016 14:03

Let's look at the facts. The Villa website put out a statement that Recon was a holdings company which has a controlling interest in 5 companies, interests in many more, which in total employ 35000 personnel in 75 countries. It appears that the controlling interest in 5 companies bit was wrong. A guess might be that the mistake was at the Villa end; the Chinese end was quick to correct it. It now appears that the controlling interest is in 1 company (it is of course possible and even likely that it has major interests in the other 4; the statement from the Chinese end that it is engaged in acquiring a controlling interest in another 4 companies tends to imply this)

There is a corrected statement on the Villa web site which reads:
Recon Group is a multinational conglomerate group led by Dr. Tony Jiantong Xia. The group holding company owns, directly and indirectly, the shares of several publicly listed companies on the Hong Kong and Chinese stock exchanges and many other private companies employing 35,000 people in 75 countries.

The mistake is a minor one. It doesn't matter a jot whether Recon owns majority interests in 0 or 100 companies. It is a holdings company; it is a vehicle for investments. What matters is whether or not it can put together the resources to buy Villa. It appears to have satisfied Hollis that it can. It now has to satisfy the leagues. If it can then Recon owns Villa. I have no problem with that.

The thing about holdings companies is that they tend not to just stick money in any old company. They have a strategy. They target certain markets for growth. They build up related investments. They invest over a period, not for the short term. At least the better ones do; from what I've read of Recon this is what Recon does. They're based in a country with huge opportunities in the medium and long term, and Recon is wired into that. If you look at what's been said about the plans for Villa, that approach ties in. I've seen it suggested that it if we aren't promoted at the end of this coming season Recon will pull out. I don't think Recon is that sort of company. It's about long term investment and profit, not about short term return. It has highly ambitious plans for Villa and the structure around it; in the scheme of things, a one season promotion is highly desirable, but nowhere near critical.

Early days. A lot more will become clear over the next two weeks and beyond. I hope we back it not knock it. Teams which aren't optimistic get nowhere on the field. Clubs and fans also need optimism

Read more: http://www.astonvilla.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=7520870#ixzz49JGC7MLR

[HarryAVFC]

So Xia isn't on the Chinese forbes list

Is that because its government funded ?

[AstonThriller]

I'm pretty sure it will be NP

Hollis said in his interview there has been a guy waiting all along to take the job but he understood the situation about the take over

I think Hollis would told Xia about NP and hes agreed to take him

Moyes would be perfect but I can't see it being him

If Xia was happy to appoint Pearson he would have been here already imo and Xia wouldn't be saying "he will be here in a week's time".

[AstonThriller]

So Xia isn't on the Chinese forbes list

Is that because its government funded ?

Bingo!!...Xia himself isn't the owner. That's what people are failing to understand. It's Recon who are the owners and Recon has links to the Chinese Government hence why the President's cousin was involved with one of the companies and then had to step down due to the media interest.

[mikethevillain]

So Xia isn't on the Chinese forbes list

Is that because its government funded ?

Bingo!!...Xia himself isn't the owner. That's what people are failing to understand. It's Recon who are the owners and Recon has links to the Chinese Government hence why the President's cousin was involved with one of the companies and then had to step down due to the media interest.

Spot on. That was made clear from day 1. Recon are the owners. Tony is the chairman.

[Chrissylee1111]

Can someone put that link on Twitter to shut ianrob up?

[BillytheKid]

Great bit of work there Thriller Harry and Mikey lads i wondered why i couldn't find Xia on Forbes and that was niggling in the back of my mind with worry why he wasn't on there, government funded Recon basically means we are backed by China

HOLY FACK

[deadbuzzardalive]

Just because someone isn't on the Forbes rich list doesn't mean to say that they don't have as much as those that are on it, just that some are more private about their wealth.

Personally I don't think Xia is that rich and will do enough to get us promoted and when he can sell us for a profit will do so, and I don't think that's a bad thing, because obviously we will have to improve from our current position for him to sell us on.

Unless of course government money is involved, but if it is I don't think we'll get an indication until we're back in the Premier.

[BillytheKid]

AVFC-OfficialSite:-

Aston Villa Football Club is pleased to announce that an agreement has been signed today for the sale of 100% ownership by Randy Lerner to Recon Group owned by Dr Tony Jiantong Xia subject to the approval of the Premier League and the Football League. Once those approvals have been granted and the new board members approved under the fit & proper rules of both leagues, Dr Xia will become Chairman of Aston Villa. The Club will announce the appointment of a new manager shortly.

http://www.avfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10265~5580369,00.html

[4BetLite]

Done some digging and found this regarding RECON owned Teamax.........  
http://www.txgis.com/zhihuishow.asp?id=514

This is a rough translation via google, any Chinese speakers on here check the link above and let us know, cheers

"Forbes' Chinese edition published its first annual list in Shanghai -" Chinese companies list potential ", science and technology summer day in 2013 topped Forbes" China's potential companies list "100. Following XWHO design won the "2011 China potential companies list" after 100, RECON (United Rui Kang) Group, another brand award. Teamax Technologies Group (Rani Technology Group) is the RECON (United Rui Ken) in China's leading smart city technology vendors and integration service providers. Based global leader in providing application solutions XGIS industry has become an important tool for government departments and enterprises to improve the level of service.

[4BetLite]

It's relevant and worth a look, happy reading............

 

A short history about football in China – II – Light at the end of the tunnel

 

The story had to start with a club in Guangzhou, not far away from Hongkong, where people speak Cantonese. The club history can be traced back to year 1954, where it was structured like a traditional government-owned sport team (not interested in getting into details of this because most of these type of structures do not exist anymore). Used to be a good team and had quite a lot of legend players. Before 2009 there were a few time trades between owners and a lot of highs and lows. In 2010, the club was relegated into the second division by the FA (with Chengdu Sheffield United, who had link with Sheff Utd at that time as the name suggested) in China because they were caught to ‘match-fixing’ (not sure if the word is accurate, but they were involved in match control, betting etc.) Soon following that, Evergrande group bought the ownership of the club with 10M pounds. Then the ‘Kaiserslauten miracle’ started.

I think it is necessary to introduce a little about the owner of Evergrande Group, Jiayin Xu, who I think set a role model (a quite different one from Jianlin Wang who also invested in football) for all the upcoming investors in Chinese football market. (If Dr. Xia can be 50% as good as Xu, Villa will win Premier league in 3 years I am no kidding.) Xu served in the army for some years when he was young (which made him a very strict boss – we will come back to it later – and Most Chinese bosses are like this) then went down to Guangzhou to do business. He married his wife who is a daughter of a very rich family and started to step in real estate business. Before he took control of the club, his company is like 2-3 billion pounds worth. Worth mentioning he did not know anything about football – before buying the club, he invested in volleyball which is his favorite sport. The rumour said he bought the football as soon as he knew that the president and the head of province (at that time) are football fans, and soon after that, he stopped investing in his volleyball club.  

The chairman of Evergrande Group, Xu, started to pump serious cash in the club. In the first season when the club was in the 2nd division, he bought using sky-high numbers to buy 5-6 national squad players (including Zheng Zhi who used to play in Celtics and Charlton Ath.). He also bought Brazilian Muriqui for 3.5 mil USD (a record high) and then 10mil USD for Dario Conca (MVP of Brazilian League that year). Then they won the 2nd division like a breeze. The following year they bought even more national squad players and won the super league with 20 points difference. Then a lot of expensive players came (Lucas Barrios, Alessandro Diamanti, Paulinho from Spurs and 45mil euros record Jackson Martinez from Athletico Madrid, and Alan (top scorer in Europa league), to name a few) in the last 4 years.

In the first year of Asian Championship league, the Korean coach led the team win the group stage. That night, Xu replaced the coach with Marcelo Lippi (with salary of 10mil pounds a year) with no mercy (although fans were pleased and later proven to be a right/harsh decision). Then Lippi took the club to the semi-final and lost there against Etihad. Same year, they won the super league again. Third year, in 2013, they won the super league and the Asian champions league. The 2nd leg of the finals, there were 350million people watching that game live on TV (imagine if 350million people from China watching UEFA Champions league final between Villa and Barca :)). They then won the super league in 2014 under Lippi, and 2015 under Luiz Scolari as well as Asian Champions league in 2015.

Worth mentioning that he invested 1 billion pounds three years, in partnership with Real Madrid, to build a football school (from year 0 to year 18) with 50,000 students (and counting...) as his youth camp. His ambition is to win the world cup, 'in line with' the football dream of the president's.

Now, Xu’s company Evergrande is now almost topping the real estate business league table, with 10 billion pounds annual income. He then stepped into a lot of new markets, and made profit there.

Interestingly, he is now elected as a non-party member of the national peoples’ council (not very accurate translation but it is like a member of the house in Westminster), with very influential power. I don't think I have to tell you what this means to a businessman in China.

With the influence of success of his club (this is quite controversial as rival clubs’ fans hate this statement and think he destroyed football), fans started to come back to watch football, which lead to huge TV contract (1 billion pounds for 3 years, sold to an online TV company, LeTV), huge interest of rich businessman investing in the clubs (Ramires, Texeira, Gervinho, Lavizzi etc.), and increasing interests in youth teams (I will write a chapter on this as this will be of financial interest to Villa - Chapter done and updated).  

And now basically there are 6-8 clubs now in super league that have  100mil pounds budget every year. They are rich and they want to win every title they can. Because of how business is run in China, most companies have state background. So the competition in super league is somewhat a competition between big heads in the state-owned companies. For example, Shandong Luneng club, owned by National Electricity Network (worth probably 50 billion USD if you really count everything in).

and btw last year Alibaba (at least 50-60% goods sold on ebay-UK are from them) bought half of the club (invited by Xu, so he shares 50/50 with Jack Ma, not 51/49.; this tells you how special Xu is as a businessman.), and now this club is on the stock market (not main stock market though).  

What is most relevant to the take over of Villa is, most of the owners in China see running a club as an opportunity to get political advantages (nothing wrong with that imo), and they will do their best to win titles. They DO NOT care how much money they pump into the club, because this is NOTHING compared to what they will gain, directly or indirectly, in their real business.

Sourced via Diesler123 on VT

[BillytheKid]

I am as sure as anything now we are government backed and this is indeed exciting times, thats why Hollis has been saying it and giggling when he did mention government backing and lets not forget him saying ''super club'', LETS FEEL EXCITED!

[4BetLite]

I am as sure as anything now we are government backed and this is indeed exciting times, thats why Hollis has been saying it and giggling when he did mention government backing and lets not forget him saying ''super club'', LETS FEEL EXCITED!

I'm same mate, It's all bullshit or we heading for the top, hope it's the latter............

[BillytheKid]

I am as sure as anything now we are government backed and this is indeed exciting times, thats why Hollis has been saying it and giggling when he did mention government backing and lets not forget him saying ''super club'', LETS FEEL EXCITED!

I'm same mate, It's all bullshit or we heading for the top, hope it's the latter............

Amen to the later

Cheers for posting them links up mate good read and shed a bit of light on things for me

[Andyh]

If Pearson is the club's choice, and Tony wants him as well, he'd be appointed now, regardless of who actually owns us in 2-3 weeks time,
That's why I don't for one second, think it's going to be him.

[wiler]

i suggest everyone go to VT and read the thread "Insight to Villa’s take over by Tony Xia - How football as a business is run in China"

great insight from a chinese football fan that now lives in the UK.

Time will tell how Dr X works out.

[BillytheKid]

Makes sense what you say Andy, why wait and discuss with Hollis next week when they both wanted the same manager? Defo agree Moyes then gotta be!

[Guest]

I feel slightly better about this tonight, must be the whisky lol. I still don't get what the Recon Group actually do

[deadbuzzardalive]

Xia has said that Pearson is on his shortlist (although in the same sentence he did say he also wanted someone with European experience). So I wouldn't rule him out. Hollis has said that there's a formula for successful Championship managers, I think he mentioned being British, having good man management skills and experience of the Championship.

[HarryAVFC]

Moyes would be perfect. could get us up and competing in Europe in a few years

pearson. Meh. Easy choice

Takeover has to happen first

[deadbuzzardalive]

Recon is (or so we're told) an holding company. I don't really know what that means but according to google it's...

"a company created to buy and own the shares of other companies, which it then controls".

[ViewFromT2]

There are some proper real life deluded idiots on this forum. It's actually funny that one or two clowns have managed to convince so many people that the government of China are funding Aston Villa..... Dear god almighty!!!

We may well be on the cusp of something, we may well be pumped with cash, but if you seriously think.... And convinced yourself the money is from the government then you are deluded at best....reading your own meaning into interviews and comments and preaching it like its the gospel.... Is there a name for people like you?

Hollis has never said we are govt backed. He said they will be involved... Of course they will, they will watch where every penny is spent, lol. And when it suits them, they will stop money being spent outside out China.

Mods, you don't have to ban me for the rant. I want no further part of this pathetic forum. I'm outta here. You aren't even allowed an opinion if it differs to what the clique wanna hear without being shouted down. Some of the replies I've seen to people's opinions over the last few days are appalling. 2 posters in particular don't debate, they dictate. TBAR is finished in my opinion.

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