I have serious doubts that the sale of Aston Villa to Tony Xia is going to happen.
Why not?
Because Tony Xia is looking like Bee Taechaubol, the Thai businessman who seems to have greatly exaggerated his wealth in order to buy AC Milan from Silvia Berlusconi. Taechaubol was going to invest a lot of money in the Italian soccer team so that it could sign better players and invest in a new stadium. The idea was to grow the AC Milan brand in Asia.
Aston Villa's Aly Cissocho walks from the pitch as his team is relegated from the English Premier... [+]
Well, once push came to shove, "Mr. Bee" as he was known, didn't have the money. Now AC Milan is about to be acquired by investors who actually have the money.
Which brings me to Aston Villa. Like AC Milan, the English team, currently owned by Randy Lerner, is losing money and needs cash to build a better roster. Pending owner Xia is promising to infuse cash into the money-losing team. They need it badly. Aston Villa are being demoted to the Championship league next year so their revenue will take a big hit.
Some of the fresh cash was reportedly going to be used to sign Ross McCormack from Fulham for around $17 million.
Enter Xia and his company, Recon Group. The Financial Times reported four days ago: "The Chinese business group which has agreed to buy Aston Villa football club admitted on Friday that it controlled only one listed company, not the five previously claimed in a press release." That's seems like a huge lie to me.
The FT story continued by saying "The Recon Group said the mistaken information contained in the press release had been the result of a “miscommunication” with Aston Villa, and they would ask the football club to change the wording of the statement." Whatever.
Now, the Telegraph is reporting even more questions about Xia: "Aston Villa's prospective new Chinese owner, has been plagued by claims he fabricated his academic record, while a company he controlled has apparently previously run foul of authorities for providing false information to secure a certificate."
The Telegraph continued by saying "Allegations in China that Mr. Xia had falsely claimed to be a professor had been previously brushed off by the Harvard graduate who said the media had exaggerated his academic record. But The Telegraph has obtained a document from Fang Zhouzi, who runs a website exposing false titles in China, which appears to show that a company chaired by Dr Xia had applied for special status from a Chinese province by claiming he was a professor at Harvard between 2001-2."
Perhaps others are questioning Xia too. Yesterday, David Moyes pulled himself out of contention to be the next manager of Aston Villa.
I hope for Aston Villa supporters the soccer authorities get to the bottom of this soon. Otherwise, next season could be worse than the past one for the English side.
