Aston Villa’s financial crisis may be over as Tony Xia enters investment talks

Aston Villa’s worst fears may be delayed after it was revealed that the AVFC board have entered discussions with a sole bidder. The bidder is still unknown, but The Birmingham Mail have revealed that it is a ‘Middle-Eastern’ group.

It really is crunch time for Villa’s owner, Tony Xia, who has papered over the cracks at the club by securing a number of bank loans. Will the club be able to pay it’s latest tax bill and payroll? It remains unknown and it is clear that there is no room for Tony Xia to stall.

The Mail report that ‘various degrees’ of ownership have been discussed and if the bid for Villa is accepted, we could still see a situation where Tony Xia is in charge of the club. In some ways, this may be a ‘best-case scenario’ and in others, it’s still bad news. Xia’s regime at Villa has been nothing but a failure and promotion to the Premier League would have only secured a few more seasons of massive financial mismanagement. Xia could have bought himself a second chance, or he could be booted from control. That remains to be seen.

On a personal note, I’ve heard from around eight separate people in the past week who have told me that Villa will be ‘taken over’ on Thursday (today) or Friday (tomorrow), and this latest news falls in line with that. We’ll see.

With the bid potentially stemming from a variety of places that could include Israel, Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, there is potential for this to be slightly problematic, and those of you who were upset that we jokingly asked Elon Musk for investment will no doubt stay silent on this occasion if Villa were to say, accept money from people employing the use of slave labour to build football stadiums. All-in-all, beggars cannot be choosers and our football club is now beholden to the highest bidder, no matter their background.

Again, all we can do is wait and see - but this could be some good news for Villa fans.

**UPDATE - Gregg Evans has suggested that the bid for Villa is in two parts. Firstly, for majority control, then a full takeover in the future.**