Source: TheGuardian
Aston Villa face bleak future as Tony Xia shortfall exposes house of cards | Stuart James
The Villa owner’s increasingly unreliable backing has left a club who were over-reliant on his funds facing crisisAlarm bells were ringing at Aston Villa long before a tax bill went unpaid last month. The first indication that all was not well came last year, when Tony Xia’s monthly payments stopped arriving with the same frequency, leaving a club that were operating way beyond their means, and are totally dependent on the owner’s financial support, scrambling around to pay the bills.Xia, the Chinese businessman who revealed that it was his dream to turn Villa into one of the world’s top three clubs when he took over two years ago, had previously always made regular transfers to cover the outgoings, averaging around £4m a month across his first season. Yet the Guardian understands that those payments were made nothing like as consistently from as far back as 2017. Related: Aston Villa agree sale of club to Chinese businessman Dr Tony Xia Xia was effectively placing all his chips on winning promotion with a high-risk strategy that has badly backfired Continue reading......read full article
