Geoffery Paine has just submitted the following comment. Of course, it’s far too short to use as an article, but it’s a good subject, so I’ll expand on it;
“I’ve just heard that Lerner has said that as the fans want him to go and he doesn’t think he can take the club any further he is putting Aston Villa FC up for sale.
He wants £250 million. What do you guys think about that?”
Apparently, this rumour first came about from a couple of apparently confirmed “in the knows” on VillaTalk.
I haven’t read the actual comments and don’t know the ITKs history, so can’t really comment on what I think of their accuracy.
But I can give my opinion.
First off, the rumour is not new and the price being mentioned is extremely similar to what I heard at least a year ago, probably nearer eighteen months back and maybe two years or more.
The rumour, as rumours tend to do, has got round fast though. I read mention of it on another Villa site and it was mentioned here earlier.
The question that springs to my mind, is how has this rumour come about?
Who at the club would be privvy to such information?
Faulkner, of course and maybe the club’s Lawyer(s), but that’s about it.
Would any of these go spouting their mouths off? I seriously doubt it.
I very much doubt even Lambert would know. Not until any deal is close to being sealed anyway.
Another thought that occurred to me was, was this conversation with whoever heard it done over the phone or a video call?
As to my knowledge, Lerner hasn’t even been in the country for ages.
That’s ok though, as someone mentioned earlier on here that they’d heard Lerner was coming into the country, but wasn’t going to the game.
Another rumour to back up the original one? I’d suggest so, myself.
Then, there’s the price.
£250 million? Who on earth in their right mind would pay that?
Even a multi Billionaire Oil Baron or Russian Oligarch would baulk at that price, as the truth is we’re nowhere near worth that.
Lerner’s put plenty of money in, granted, but if my memory serves me correctly, didn’t he pay something like £69 million to buy out Ellis?
He also had to buy out the rest of the shareholders, he spent on the Holte pub and continued the revamp of Bodymoor Heath. Say another £20 million at most there.
For roundness, call it £90 million.
Then we have to look at what he’s laid out for players as opposed to what he’s got back and who has a clue when it comes to that?
I’m no expert when it comes to accounts, but I do know the figures can easily be made to look exactly like you want them too, at least over the short term, as long as you don’t break any laws and things add up over time.
Put it this way, I’ve read Accountant Villa fans give their opinions and the truth is, even professionals are as confused as the rest of us.
I read another comment elsewhere that the club is still £50 mill in debt to Lerner.
I’d suggest that’s reasonable, but it’s being paid down fairly sharpish, in my opinion.
And then we have to look at Assets.
Villa park and the Holte pub are worth whatever you can get for them.
No disrespect to Aston, but I wouldn’t exactly call it a desirable area, where you’d want to build a Hotel and shopping complex or whatever. So you’d basically be paying for what VP is; An iconic Premier league ground. I suppose you can’t put a price on that, can you?
Then we have Bodymoor and a pure guess says £10 mill.
We have a chunk of land left that last I heard was worth £25 mill.
And then we have the players. God only knows what they’re worth, but once you take Benteke, Guzan and maybe Gabby out of the equation, I wouldn’t think it’s much at the moment.
I’ll leave you to speculate on what we’re actually worth.
Then of course, on top of the quoted £250 mill, if you were serious, you’d have to pump £50 mill in straight away.
So that’s £300 mill.
I don’t know if this rumour is true or not, but the only conclusion I can draw is that even if it is true, it simply isn’t going to happen, as we’re just not worth it.
So to answer the question posed above, I think it’s utter rubbish.
Sell the club but keep the training ground and VP and rent it back. I always said this was the problem with Lerner putting those assets under Reform Acquisitions Limited
I’m not sure how that works though.
Surely if you want to buy a club, you do exactly that.
Buy the whole kit and caboodle.
And you don’t rent anything?
only hookers for half an hour a pop
not quite Mark. The assets of the club are still fully owned by Aston Villa which is in turn owned by RAL (UK).
where you are right is that Lerner started up a company based at Villa called REFORM ACQUISITIONS REALTY LIMITED now this has not been used yet and I am watching what happens (if anything) to this one.
I have said for a long time to much disdain that the club was up for sale as soon as they cut back on the wages, I have no reason to change my mind.
The post I made a couple of weeks ago about the lift on cap of the share capoital could be far more significant.
Ask a palace fan mate and mention Ron Noades and Simon Jordan.
You can sell what you like.
That’s right. Quite a few clubs don’t own their grounds anymore. Coventry for one.
Ron Noades died this week didn’t he…
And Coventry currently play at Northampton don’t they?
That’s not the sort of thing I’d want down the Villa.
Very surprised people are suggesting we should split the club from the ground, as I buy into the idea of the whole thing, but each to their own, I guess.
badger i think you are missing the point. No club wants to separate the real estate from the ‘FC Ltd’ but it’s a fact that club owners do when they think the club versus the ground/training ground is worth more – google the Chelsea Pitch Owners Association.
Yep, I must be missing the point and still am.
Abramovich did everything he could to buy out the pitch, didn’t he?
So I don’t see how he wanted to split things.
Roman (via his mouthpiece Bruce Buck) annoyed the CPO by trying to get the leasehold on the cheap so he could build a new stadium at Battersea powerstation (as ‘Chelsea FC’ have to play on the pitch at the bridge or they cannot use the CFC name without the CPO approval) and redevelop the bridge into expensive housing
He didn’t do everything he could. he sent some knobhead yank in there to try and bully the CPO with a no negotiation take it or leave it offer and they fucked him off and they have now lost the Battersea Powerstation site.
Anyway back to my point, Randy could sell the club but Reform Acquisitions could still retain the training ground and Villa Park and thus fuck us up a bit
Well I’d say sell it, you don’t want an owner that just buys and leave the running of your club to incapable people, the next question is who would buy? If their was a rich foreign buyer would we be happy, I know we are not now because we are going backwards and not forwards, our club has history and should be sitting with the big clubs , yes sell but not to the likes of Tan, a buyer for the fans and with the fans all the way.
Bill, some facts for you about our great club it took 71 years to win any championship title after 1901 season, the 60’s seen us have the worst decade of clubs history, ave gate 18500, in 1967 we were beaten by 8 teams ave 5 goals. We are an ave name in the footballing world, hence an ave club, and can spout loads of this data with the proof of course.
Expectations are to high because of what MON did, problem is it’s caused financial problems.
I like you have many fond memories of what we call our great club, but no big money spender is going to buy us, and I fear for the club.
So true though we won a few fa cups in that time. Expectation levels went up IMO when we were in the old third div. I no that sounds strange but that’s when I started going the crowds were brilliant nearly 50,000 for Bournemouth at home in the 3rd division ffs. There was just a buzz around vp we just seemed to know we were destined for greatness in the near future and that’s what happened winning the biggest prize of all. After that and rightly so huge expections came but soon went and wev not even had got close to having it so good again except briefly under BFR. Even the MON was flawed we had a once in a lifetime opportunity to crack the top 4 and he bottled it. We will never get that chance again under Lerner I’m afraid no matter who we get as manager and what players we sign. If you want to keep decent players you have to finish 4th. Look at Everton if they don’t finish 4th Barkley and baines will be off in a flash.
I can’t see anyone paying the quoted price. You need some sort of return on investment and Birmingham isn’t seen as lucrative enough. Remember the land price comparisons when Abramovich was looking at us and Chelski? The land around VP was valued around £325, 000 per acre. The land around Stamford Bridge at £50 million. And look at the hike in value of London property.
I’d think it would be a cheaper, more fun project, and with more grateful fans to buy a lower league team and get them into the PL rather than see us climb 6 places in the table.
Sad to say, but football is over for a club in like ours. We can talk about the Dortmund model but how often does a ‘model’ travel? If it was that straight forward every club would be following it.
Whoever drew up our so called current plan is in dreamland. Buy cheap second rate players and you get the sort of football we’re seeing served up. This is NOT Hollywood.
The fact that teams are spending gazillions aiming for FOURTH PLACE says it all about the state of the game.
I didn’t renew my ST after Houllier left. I heard McLxxxch was coming, and afterwards didn’t buy into Lambert’s bullshit. I have better things to spend my money and time on.
It’s all fucked. Depressing, but true.
I thought some Arab investment company had purchased a lot of the land surrounding the ground. I was under the impression they were going to invest into the whole area and turn it into a business hub due to its location. This is why the King Edward was closing down and getting knocked down. This investment is not football related unfortunately but more to do with arabic oil rich shekh and companies investing money now so that when fuel runs out they have other forms of income.
i believe they maybe Qatari and this is why there was some confusion with Lerner seeling to one of the Qatari royal family, when in fact they were just doing business investment totally unrelated to football, i could be wrong and misread it or mis remembered it but that is what i thought.
Apologies in advance if i am wrong lol
A lot of sense in what your saying, but we do have massive development coming, plus the speed train going through Saltley it should actract businessman from other parts of the globe, my lad has just been served compulsorily purchase of his factory in that area, so alls not lost. Birmingham have been behind the times but has that road infrastructure to all parts of the country. Time will tell.
The major investment re HS2 will go to London, same as it already does, but that’s a different debate.
I spent a few weeks working in the city in the summer and I’ll tell you what Bill, it’s a different world.
The Gulf between London and Birmingham (and the rest of the country come to think of it) has grown massively and it’s a bloody disgrace.
It is quite clear that he has lost interest or other priorities have taken over Aston Villa.
Who buys something for £70m and then after a couple of years loses interest and does not show up to the games, Thats a lot of money to throw around and then become very distant from in such a short space of time. I am of the opinion he jumpted on the Prem band wagon and then when he realised he had bitten off more than he could chew lost interest
it is also very clear we are going backwards and around in circles, yesterdays performance from an established premier league team against a relatively new one was embarassing.
Randy will not get 50m for it next year when we get relegated to the championship because we are the worst team in the league bar none. he needs to sack Lambert and bring in a manager with lots of contacts in the game.
We need to get in expereinced players whether on loan deals short term deals or players currently out of contract Villa are in the shit and if you think otherwise or are going to buy into we are building for the future then you are a bigger fool than I.
True Captain. To Lerner him owning Villa is like the rest of us owning a one bed flat in London. As long as the roof doesn’t leak it will naturally climb in value.
Unfortunately not only the roof is collapsing, but there’s woodworm all the way through VP too.
lets face it he his repaying the loan to himself and then even if he walks away he will get a lot more than he paid for the club when the loan is cleared
I’ve sent an email to Falkner asking him to consider Lamberts position
Mark, your email to Faulkner is a waste of time, he cant read and probably doesn’t know who Paul Lambert is.
Do we have an email address as i would like to send one as well
Hi mate, done it through linkedin
Good on you Mark for sending the email, sadly won’t make a jot of difference. Faulkner hasn’t got a clue, he’s probably looking at the table seeing us in 13th and nodding with approval. Morons the lot of them, tbh I can see why lamberk, lerner and faulkner all get on, clueless buffoons the lot of them.
one day i will speak openly about everything
Interesting comment
What does that mean?
Something I’ve just found on the net that makes interesting reading-
So Lerner’s holding company has taken out £37m loans to buy and fund Villa, and £1.8m interest rolled up on that over the 10 months, but the club’s income has not been used to pay it. “The loan is repayable in full in 2016”, so it may be that Lerner will expect to see some return then, “although realistically he is unlikely to make money unless he sells the club.” Shortly after Lerner’s takeover Keith Harris of Seymour Pierce, who acted as Lerner’s bankers, said that his rich clients bought football clubs as “trophy assets”, like yachts or racehorses, and said Lerner was in it “for the long term”, although he suggested that did not mean longer than 10 years.
Ffs does that mean we are stuck with him till 2016 the earliest.
That’s just more smoke and mirrors to me, BWS.
All I know is if I look to buy an investment (albeit with the little bit of money I have), I generally think 10 years too.
As for holding companies, my opinion has always been that they’re there to hide stuff or at least confuse things.
Not that I’m suggesting Lerner is doing anything dodgy.
Isn’t the case the Villa is now split into 11 different companies? If so what would you get for your £250m? (if this is true).
Not that I have the odd £250m lying around!
I don’t know about the 11 different companies, but it doesn’t matter as they’re all owned by Lerner/the trust.
So you get the lot, including any debt wiped out, I’d expect.
Trouble is, even without the debt, the club isn’t worth that kind of money, which is why I think the whole thing is bollocks,
Much better to pay off the debt, which we must be doing in spades (don’t forget the extra £30 mill telly money next year, which makes the supposed £50 mill debt peanuts really) and then sell.
I’ve no doubt Lerner will be looking to sell, it’s just the timing and the figure mentioned that’s all wrong, to me anyway.
Going back to that EXTRA telly money, I suppose that could be a nice little earner.
We’re probably making a profit now, without that £30 mill.
A tight owner could keep things at the status quo and pocket the extra £30mill for himself.
At that rate, you’ve paid for the club in 10 years… nice.
Which is another reason the timing’s wrong for me. If I was Lerner, I’d wait a couple of years and take £60 mill out.
If I didn’t care about the club, that is.
nope BWS it is not.
There is one main company at Villa – Aston villa Ltd which has all the assets, in return this is owned by RAL UK which is in turn owned by RAL US.
the other companies you may know have been set up historically and still active but contain few assets. In that way Villa’s finances are quite transparent and open for all to see.
Cheers Robo, well that’s put that one to bed.
Badger does he care mate?
For all that is said about Vincent Tan he does seem to give a f**k even he’s to far the other way.
Good piece in the Mail yesterday questioning McKay’s spending (£8m on an unknown with a £1,25m signing on fee and putting his wages up from 6 to 45k a week) .
Perhaps Malky McKay may not be the innocent injured party that he’s being painted out to be with all sorts of rumours flying around regarding alleged back handers, he just might not be so squeaky clean in the Cardiff fiasco as it seems.
I will believe it when i see it.But we can all live in hope.
Did a bot of digging on the net and I think ‘paul.faulkner@avfc.co.uk’ is his email address. I didn’t get a bounceback anyway.
Bombard him people, baombard him.
I’m thinking an email a day much like what we saw in the the shawshank redemption.
Lambert out!
I think I’m actually connected to him on linkedin. But wouldn’t contact him as I don’t think that’s the right way to go about it. Bottom line is he must read the net and look at blogs not necessarily ours but others and he will be able to gauge the mood as most are saying the same thing. Apparantly ogs has been advised by saf not to join Cardiff. Interesting. However I wouldn’t want him as he is totally dominated by saf and utd and will have a wank fest every time we play against them like houllier did at liverpool
yeah i agree probably not that professional to contact him via this method but how else do you suggest?
We are not getting any communication anywhere else so i’m just fucked off.
will let you know if he gets back to me
Agree he must be aware of the situation regardless of emails etc. Bottom line is fans Havnt really got any influence these days as ther main income is now sky. What they earn of fans is peanuts in comparison.
Make no difference as you will probably find his emails are screened and only imp ones will go to him
don’t bombard him otherwise he will just change his email address. that is the right one by the way.
just wait and see what he comes back to me with. I’ve contacted him professionally through LinkedIn so he can see who I am and who I work for etc….. so it’s not just a rant from an anonymous email address
Someone on the WM phone in said that it’s plain to see that Lerner isn’t bothered when Prince William was the game a few weeks ago and he still couldn’t be arsed to turn up. I’m no Royalist but it struck me how that’s a great example of Lerner’s apathy to the club.
It’s time for those in charge at the club to re-evaluate their 5 year plan as it clearly isn’t working. Lambert clearly thought his kids had ‘come of age’ in the prem after avoiding relegation but that’s clearly not the case – they can’t handle the expectation. He needs to be given an opportunity to buy quality players in this coming window & pay the wages to go with them.
theres a 5 year plan?
The 5 year plan is simple. Run the club down and take as much money as possible then sell to tge highest bidder.
what about if Lerner decided to sell it to a fan for a pound and you was it?
think you could run it better?
No I couldn’t because I wouldn’t have a clue about running a club. However, what I would do straight away would be to listen to the fans and surround myself with a top class team of football people, commercial and marketing people with ambition to take the club forward.
5 year plan or ‘project’; whatever. If re-evaluating means investing or selling up early then so be it; it needs to be done. The supporters aren’t going put up with much more. The MOTD interviewer was the first person i’ve heard ask Lambert how he expects fans to put up with such poor football at home but he blamed it on injuries etc. Joker.
On newsnow there are stories that lambert is saying he is not immune to the sack even though he has a good relationship with Lerner. I think the end is nigh IMO. Just hope we don’t get Mackey or ogs. Disaster appointments
Oohah…. I appreciate and respect your comments but you have just said no to the two big favourites to get the job who may actually want it and may be realistic!!
I don’t get you. Who would actually want this poisoned chalice?
I would like someone like Benitez or van gaal but no that’s not realistic because of the money. If that’s all wev got to look forward to then may as well stick with lambert I’m afraid.
Benitez has already turned us down so has OGS. Who realistically?
That’s the key word ‘realistically’. Unfortunately if we can’t get a quality manager then we may as will stick rather than twist and give him till the end of the season I’m afraid. There are better managers out there but the fact remains they will not come to us unless Lerner has open wallet surgery and that ain’t going to happen. On the ogs front no one else in the prem have bothered to sign him not saints, stoke Cardiff etc is he really that good!!?
Benitez also just joined a bigger club in Napoli over the summer so even if we were in a better situation, it wouldn’t happen.
OGS probably fits the bill for owner, fans and press alike. A likeable bloke with a good football pedigree. Whether he succeeds i dont know but right now I think we have nothing to lose. I will always support Villa regardless of league, lerner on the other hand has a lot of money to lose and he will lose it if Lambert stays.
Ogs would be a disaster IMO. He would try and play the right way but revert to hoof all as we will never be able to afford tge quality players to play that way. To jump from a shite Norwegian league to the cut and thrust of a premiership is huge difference. He will cut his teeth with us and fuck off to utd. I don’t want another fergie recommendation and him picking our manager again thanks. Also if he was that good why didn’t fergie recommend him for utd job. He is also too young. Look at AVB hardly set tge world alight and he had quality players to work with.
Well said morgan villa
Fergie always liked Moyes though, that’s why. OGS is a big name that will no doubt be at United at some point in his career, but Fergie’s always thought Moyes was going to be his successor.
AVB didn’t get the players he wanted, typically betrayed by his owners. Lerner wouldn’t tell him no, Levy and Abromavic both went with their own wishes, plus Levy went with Baldini and not what AVB wanted.
True but on paper AVB still had a quality team to work with whether they are his players or not. Sherwood for example has started pkaying 2 up front and they look a different team. As for OGS he’s done well in a rubbish league. People think we should give him a chance thinking he must be good because he played under fergie. Tell me Andrew of one decent ex utd. Manager. Hughes Bruce keane ince etc all shit.
Oohah I don’t think he will get the sack yet, that maybe the case in 3 weeks time if he don’t turn it around. We are stuck with him to the message gets to Lerner, every thing we do is slow to see, we had that same thing with Strides era, its shit street till its to late.
I think if we lose wed then that’s it for lambert. But as always there’s no one out there better than him who would come to us. Please don’t mention Makay or ogs. Ogs is so far up utds and fergie sares it’s untrue. He would start of playing good football to win fans over secretly wishing he was at utd. Then he would revert back to hoof ball as he will quickly realise we will never be able to afford the quality players to suit his game.
I think your right, we lose Wednesday and he’s gone, Makay will not get the job he has a 6 month court battle OGS will not be offered the job a second time.
Carlos Quieroz!…..and
Fuck off Lerner, the Villa is OURS!
Let’s hope someone from red bull reads this site and buys learner out ASAP
Put me right if i am wrong.But before Lerner gave the LEMMINGS their man in LAMBERK after OGS turned us down did he or did he not visit Spain to sound out the possibility of having a Spanish manager.As for Micky Mouse MacKay taking over do you not think it;s time to look outside the box.
I don’t recall him going to Spain Terry, but you could be right.
I can’t say I’m keen on looking outside the box either, if you mean a technically minded tactically astute young foreign manager.
Anyone like that would look at our squad and just want to tear it to pieces, as to me the quality simply isn’t there. It’s probably why Martinez and OGS turned us down.
We’re supposed to have bought in more technical players, but how can they possibly be that when a simple pass is beyond most of them?
Yet another example of the bullshit that has gone on with this so called “project”, imo.
I keep going back to the back end of last season, where many of us thought we did well.
I was one of the few voices that said we never really beat anyone decent and that late run really wasn’t as good as it was made out to be.
You just can’t get away from the fact that cheap = shit, imo.
Until we spend more like the going rate on fees and wages, it won’t matter who we get in.
It was not only cheap player’s but also cheap backroom coaches, you just said it yourself cannot put two passes together, what does that tell us all ? Im giving my seat away cannot bring myself to see such bad play, seen our game 3 times they are terrible.
we have the lowest pass completion in the league and the worst disciplinary.
I’d think before questioning the technical ability of the players, we should be questioning what the hell they tell these players in training.
spot on Steve. when you look at last season Benteke’s goals hid a lot of problems and I think the fans and club got too complacent.
Remeber you had fans saying Lowton and Westwood England quality, there was a kind of self delusion going around I never understood. Now Benteke is out and out of form we see the true level.
Spouting ITK bollox again.
What happened to your ‘fact’ that we CANT buy Barry in Jan, because he is on a season long loan. FFS, stop guessing or claiming that you are the ITK about all things Villa. Stop spouting ‘guesses’ as facts!
Fuck off Lerner, the Villa is OURS
I don’t know Ian, tbh.
I could counter my own argument, in that we have played the odd games where we’ve knocked it around nicely. I remember some lovely triangular quick passing last season, but it was all too fleeting.
Perhaps it’s a case that the players can do it, but are not being allowed too?
I give up trying to find answers, tbh.
All I know is, as things stand we’re just utter rubbish on the pitch, for whatever reason.
That part is undeniable and we can all see it.
Except the manager, it would seem.
thats an interesting point. I feel that the players we have signed are more technical than any mc leish or possibily even O neill signed (don’t know about houllier’s)
but the fact is that its a total technique famine at VP.
the passing is so so bad at times its scary.
I think its a mix of game plan on Lamberts part ( ie play it long, counter or play direct) and one half total lack of confidence. its knocked out of them. especially the lower league come new premier league players such as westwood or lowton et al.
When i think of the sunderland game and the crystal palace game we tried to pass it and did retain the ball but it was just totally inefective.
we just don’t create anything.
Probably because we lack the AM or mercurial attacker to provide a spark when the passess get too lateral.
anyways
it has to improve.
Bennett/Luna more technically gifted than Warnock?
Westwood than Bannan or Ireland?
Lowton than Hutton?
I’ll give you Vlaar but we got him on the cheap due to his horrific injury record.
He made 132 appearances for Feyenoord in 6 years and I believe the bloke (as much as I rate him) as done both cruciate ligaments, so he is always going to be prone to layoffs (imo).
One thing is Lerner will sell one day but at this rate it will be a club in the L1 just what happened to wolves no investment and down they went.
Is one of the ITKs spreading this rumour the attention seeking mad woman who was so sure that Kiyotake would sign in the summer? If so, enough said.
we have no money do we?
True, the club don’t.
But Lerner’s got a billion dollars sat burning a hole in his pocket.
And that’s before you count the stock market crash, that wiped him down to a measly $400 mill and has recovered fairly well since.
It must be a right bastard only having $1.5 billion+
Nice one Langford.
Probably ITK Robo
Fuck off Lerner, the Villa is OURS