Villa aims for quick top-tier return
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THE Chinese magnate buying English football club Aston Villa, the latest of several investments from China into football worldwide, said his company could pay more than 100 million pounds (US$146 million) for the club, but would not be “burning money” to turn the team around.
The deal, which would drop to about 75 million pounds if the just relegated club does not get back into the English Premier League next season, will see the chairman of little-known Recon Group, Xia Jiantong, become the first mainland Chinese to fully own an English team.
Xia said the club, which counts actor Tom Hanks and Britain’s Prince William among its fans, would spend 30-40 million pounds on players for next season.
That would be a hefty budget for a team in English second tier, but would be no splurge by the standards of the EPL — to which he aims to return the club — where one top player can cost more than that.
As a route to success, Xia cited the example of Leicester City, the rank outsider which won the EPL this season, beating billionaire-backed rivals Manchester City and Chelsea, which spent many times more on players.
“The club won’t take the path of burning money; we are a business, not funded by Arab oil wealth,” he said in a statement.
He did not say whether the club would recoup money by selling any current players.
Xia said that Villa was one of eight EPL clubs he had considered buying. He also said he was in talks with various soccer teams in Spain and Italy for potential acquisitions within three years, and was also in talks in China and India. That would further boost China’s profile in the sport, a growing presence supported by avid football fan President Xi Jinping, who has made it a goal to one day win the World Cup.
China has ploughed huge sums into grassroots academies, television rights, transfer deals for overseas players and investment in clubs abroad.
In another potential deal, Bloomberg reported that Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is in talks to become a top sponsor of FIFA, the international body that runs the World Cup.
More broadly, China is aiming to grow the domestic sports market to 5 trillion yuan (US$782 billion) by 2025, about five times its current scale.
Recon Group, which has a controlling interest in five publicly listed companies on the Hong Kong and Chinese stock exchanges, said it was in talks to appoint a new Villa manager who has won the UEFA Champions League. That will stoke the rumors that Roberto di Matteo, who as caretaker Chelsea manager won European soccer’s top competition in 2011-12, is a favorite for the job.
Xia said the club was already considering specific candidates after more than a month of searching and an announcement could come within two to three weeks.
Most famous
China’s biggest overseas investment in football so far occurred was last year, when a consortium led by state-backed China Media Capital took a US$400 million stake in Manchester City.
The Villa deal, however, with 100 percent ownership, is not just an investment.
“The Chinese ownership now get to decide how to run the club,” said Mark Dreyer, Beijing-based founder of sports information website China Sports Insider.
Crosstown arch-rival Birmingham City is also run from Asia, following the 2009 takeover by Hong Kong-based businessman Carson Yeung.
Villa’s American owner Randy Lerner, who put the club on the market in 2014, struck the deal after Villa suffered a miserable season, ending bottom of the EPL. The deal with American-educated Xia, 39, ends an unhappy tenure for Lerner, who bought the club for 62.2 million pounds in 2006. Fans have openly demonstrated against his continued involvement with Villa, which was the European champion in 1982 and has won the English top-flight title seven times, most recently in 1980-81.
“Aston Villa’s relegation really played in their favor,” said Fredrik van Huynh, Shanghai-based director of HHC Sports Group. “It will have pushed down the price quite significantly.”
Xia declined to say how long he had been in talks with Villa, but they had begun before it was clear the team would be relegated.
The club said Xia’s immediate objective was “to return Aston Villa to the Premier League and then to have the club finish in the top six, bringing European football back to Villa Park.”
It added the deal would also help make Villa the most famous football club in China.
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