Villa sale rumours: Boehly and Silverman are the new names to know

Reports in The Sun that were later parroted by the Birmingham Mail (and are now being parroted by us!) say that American investment bankers Henry Silverman and Todd Boehly are considering purchasing Aston Villa. The club has been for sale since last May, and these latest rumours follow hot on the heels of news that a UK-based group were looking at taking over the claret and blues.

Silverman was the Chief Operating Officer of private equity firm Apollo Global Management but was hired by Guggenheim Partners in 2012 to be their vice chairman of asset management. That's probably where he became involved with Boehly. If there is anything to this rumour it's because of Boehly's involvement. In 2012, he was a significant factor in a Guggenheim-led consortium taking control of Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers for $2.15 billion. The takeover was enormously complicated, but the end result was a huge infusion of cash and hope for a franchise that had grown moribund despite being one of the league's most iconic. Sounds a lot like Aston Villa, no?

But, as with all rumours of this sort, take it with a grain of salt. Silverman and Boehly were rumoured to be interested in buying Tottenham last year, but that came to nothing. It's the international break and there isn't much going on, so this could very easily be a case of a newspaper starting a rumour based on nothing more than the idea of these two having been interested in a club before and Aston Villa being a club.

That's not to say that there is no truth to anything we've heard this weekend, but we've gotten approximately this much detail on countless rumours in the past year already. If we start hearing more, we'll let you know. For now, just keep waiting. If Villa can secure safety and remain in the Premier League this season, the chances of hearing of an actual sale will probably skyrocket.